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PHILOSOPHY OF 



CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 



EIGHT LECTURES 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE OHIO WESLEYAN 
UNIVERSITY 

ON THE MERRICK FOUNDATION 



job 3 



RANDOLPH S. FOSTE 




THIRD SERIES 



NEW YORK: HUNT &» EATON 

CINCINNATI : CRANSTON &» STOWB 

1890 



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Copyright, 1890, by 

HUNT & EATON, 

New York. 



PREFACE. 



The honored projector of the foundation under whose auspices 
the following lectures were delivered — himself a ripe scholar, 
a venerable and venerated teacher, a beautiful exponent of 
Christian character — still lives. The foundation provides for 
" an annual course of at least Jive lectures on Experimental 
and Practical Religion." It is doubtful whether, pressed as 
the lecturer was, at the time he received the invitation to de- 
liver one of the courses, with other uncompleted and weighty- 
literary engagements in addition to onerous official duties, and 
withal not over strong, he could have entertained the suggestion 
for a moment, but for two circumstances. 

The first of these circumstances was, that, unconsciously, and 
probably wholly unknown to himself, the founder of the lecture- 
ship had been for more than fifty years a constructive force in 
the mind life and spiritual life of the lecturer. It is not given 
us to know here what subtle influences go from us, fashioning 
other lives. Possibly it may be an element of the joy or sorrow 
of eternity to make the discovery. It gives me profound pleas- 
ure to make this public acknowledgment of a long-standing debt 
of gratitude. The pressure of a hand laid on me when a strip- 
ling is still sensibly felt. 

The second circumstance that moved me to consent was the 
theme suggested, "The Philosophy of Christian Experience." 
Had the matter of selecting a subject been left to myself, it is 
probable preoccupancy with other great discussions would 



2 PREFACE. 

have been a formidable if not fatal hinderance. The mind 
already tense with uncompleted investigations does not readily 
adjust itself to the search for new lines. The offered theme 
opened an inviting door. The task was accepted. The lectures 
to follow are the result. 

The subject is sympathetic with the temper of the age. It 
deals with facts rather than speculations ; with experimental 
verities rather than mere dogmas. It subjects Christianity to 
practical tests, and so puts it in line with scientific method. It 
offers the inner experiences of the soul to the examination and 
explanation of reason. The age busies itself with facts, demands 
facts, will have nothing but facts, relegates all speculation ; the 
subject accepts the situation, and presents facts for considera- 
tion — the deepest and most indisputable of all facts : not the 
mere facts of sense, about which there may be dispute and 
which relate to merely material and temporal things, but the 
deeper facts of the soul, facts of consciousness, about which it is 
impossible there should be any dispute ; facts which affect 
character and destiny, therefore of the most profound interest 
possible. 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. PAGE 

Limitations and Definitions 5 

LECTURE II. 
Implications and Conditioning Grounds of Experience 26 

LECTURE III. 
Antecedent History and Principles avhich Color Experience ... . . 49 

LECTURE IV. 
Process and Elements of Experience. Forgiveness 14 

LECTURE V. 
Elements of Experience Continued. Regeneration 8Q 

LECTURE VI. 
Pacts which Condition Experience Subsequent to Regeneration 109 

LECTURE TIL 
Some Phases of Experience ... 127 

LECTURE VIII. 
Possibilities of Grace, and Advices 154 



♦ 



PHILOSOPHY OF 

CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 



LECTU RE 1. 
LIMITATIONS AND DEFINITIONS. 

The greatest difficulty I have found in preparing these lect- 
ures has been to determine what things to exclude so as to bring 
them within allowed limits ; and yet so as not to mar them by 
leaving out matters which ought to be mentioned, as having es- 
sential bearings on the subject to be discussed. An attempt to 
give a philosophy of Christian experience without discussing the 
doctrine of human sin and sinfulness, for instance, seems to be 
commencing to build in the air ; the same is true of the doctrine 
of atonement ; yet any one at all informed on the nature of 
these subjects and of the breadth of discussion they involve 
will see that either of them, to be discussed at all, would re- 
quire more than all the time I have for my entire subject. It 
is impossible, therefore, for me to enter the field of polemics on 
these points at all. They are fully discussed in Studies in The- 
ology ', now going through the press. The only possible atten- 
tion I can give them in these lectures is the briefest reference 
and simple statement when continuity of thought demands it. 

The stand-point from which the discussion proceeds is, 
broadly, that occupied by Arminian theologians, without slavish 
adherence to all the incidents put into the theory by many of 
its advocates. Its theory of sin and atonement and cognate doc- 
trines is assumed as substantially correct, without any attempt 



6 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

at unfolding or defending the positions held. But, while this 
is the stand-point which my mind holds theologically, it must 
be kept in mind that I have no concern whatever about the 
defense of any theological system. I am not proposing to treat 
the subject theologically at all, and am utterly careless about 
systems as such. My line is entirely another — deals with facts 
and the philosophy of them. 

It is proper to say, before entering upon the discussion to 
which these lectures are to be devoted, that they do not propose 
a philosophy of religion, or even a philosophy of the Christian 
system of religion. These are cognate and generally related 
subjects to our topic, but are broader, and our limits will not 
permit us even to broach them. There are many able treatises 
on these distinct topics within the reach of every student, which, 
in order to the best theological furnishing, ought to be read and 
studied with care. As an invaluable treatise of this kind, bear- 
ing directly en Christian apologetics, I commend Walker's 
Ph ilosophy of the Plan of Salvation / in many respects equal, 
and in some respects superior, to Bishop Butler's masterpiece, 
T/te Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Consti- 
tution and Coarse of Nature, which, of course, no student is un- 
acquainted with. 1 also commend, as of great value, the two 
works of Dr. Mark Hopkins, Lectures on Moral Philosophy 
and Ethics, and The Law of Love and Love a Law ; likewise 
Bushnell's Nature and the Sxqyernatural. And I will venture 
to speak of yet one other, which I have been permitted to see 
in manuscript, for which the world has been waiting too long, 
and I hope may not have to wait much longer, Comparative 
Religions, by Dr. William F. Warren, of the Boston University. 

These lectures will be strictly limited to the investigation of 
" the philosophy of Christian experience." There have been 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 7. 

.many works written on the subject of Christian experience, 
some practical and experimental, some speculative, critical,.and 
theological, but, so far as I am informed, while many of these 
have been stimulating and helpful to thought none have at- 
tempted a philosophy of the subject. We enter, therefore, upon 
a somewhat new and, in some respects, unfinger-boarded and un- 
trodden way. It is proper I should say that our path lies broad 
away from a strictly biblical or theological treatise ; and from hor- 
tation or an attempt to stimulate to the pursuit of an experience. 
I propose no theological polemic. For my purposes I shall 
make the least possible reference theologizing.. Nor will it be 
expected that I shall deal with matters of exegesis. As nearly 
as possible I will omit any reference to the text.. This may seem 
strange in treating of such a theme as Christian experience, but 
it is precisely what my thesis demands. I am to deal with 
matters of experience — purely subjective phenomena ; to in- 
quire what they are, and how they are to be explained. Theolog- 
ical and biblical principles are involved and will, emerge, but 
they do not enter into my discussion directly., No position 
taken will depend for its support or will be supported by appeal 
to the Bible, though some will depend on. the Bible for their 
historical grounds. 

Perhaps it ought to be stated more explicitly that the method 
pursued in this discussion is entirely different from that ordi- 
narily pursued in dealing with Christian topics. The usual 
method is to attempt to find what is taught in or deduceable 
from the Bible. The book is court of final resort; its dictum 
is decisive. The aim is to find what it teaches. Now this is 
not my aim at all. I do not even, raise the question. My point 
, is to find what human experience is,,and what human experience 
teaches along certain lines. This will explain why so little ref- 
erence is made to the Bible in these lectures. Other treatises — 



8 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

a former treatise of my own — proceed from the view-point of the 
Bible. This discussion is from the view-point of the soul itself. 

This course is pursued as the only legitimate course in essay- 
ing to give a philosophy of facts which are wholly facts of ex- 
perience. I desire attention to every position taken, and hold 
myself under obligation to the proof that nothing advanced is 
contrary to the word of God when the proof is demanded. My 
hope is to show that Christian experience is capable of rational 
interpretation and defense ; and so to make it appear that con- 
crete Christianity, or the Christianity of experience, rationally 
unfolded, is precisely the Christianity of the Bible, doctrinally 
revealed. 

Some of the positions taken will impinge on current systems, 
and some opinions about them will be expressed, but only as 
they bear on the philosophy propounded, not at all on the the- 
ological polemic. 

The demand for definition. What is definition f The terms 
of the thesis call for definition. Definition itself needs to be 
defined. It is essential to definition that it define ; that is, that 
it should separate the object defined from every other subject, 
so that it becomes a distinct object of thought — set off by 
itself. That is the etymological significance of the term — to 
bound, or set boundaries. Nothing approaches definition that 
does not secure this first condition. But this is not sufficient. 
Definition must include all that is essential to the object defined. 
If any essential is left out, the definition falls short of its aim 
in an essential point, and the defect may be such as to involve 
utter error. The statement of the most important fact, with 
respect to an object, is not a definition of it, though it may in- 
dicate it. The definition must include every essential and ex- 
clude every thing else. If more is put into the definition than is 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 9 

included in the thing defined, the object is not before the mind, 
but some other object — a distortion. The included error may be 
such as to be utterly misleading and involve fatal misdirection. 
Truth is exact, and to reach it the utmost possible precision 
is necessary in the use of significant terms ; never more so than 
in a discussion like the present. General statements, when all 
their inclusions are fully understood and mutually accepted, 
may so indicate an object as to preclude the necessity of more 
formal and elaborate definition, but when the subject is one of 
fundamental importance, and there are possible diverse views, 
such general statements are always to be looked upon with sus- 
picion, and create a demand for examination lest some covert 
meaning having in it concealed error be intended, or, if not in- 
tended, be nevertheless introduced. It is not an uncommon 
thing for error to be so masked in plausible general terms as to 
impose upon those who use them, as well as those addressed by 
them. They have such a semblance to truth, and in some in- 
stances so manifestly contain a truth, that, while containing along 
with the truth a fatal error, the error is so concealed as not to be 
discovered, and the truth itself is made to give currency to a 
destructive falsehood. It is in this way that the most damaging 
systems of error gain foothold with honest minds. Error never 
comes naked. It drapes itself in garbs of truth and thus insid- 
iously insinuates and establishes itself. It is a rogue which, 
knowing that if seen alone it would not be tolerated for a 
moment, always comes in a crowd of well-known respectable 
truths, and seeks to gain admission by the good company it 
keeps. It is by this subtlety that false systems of doctrine and 
heretical creeds always put as much truth in them as possible, 
and give these truths prominence, and call themselves by old 
and honored names, that under these disguises they may inject 
their poison without starting apprehension. 



1.0 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

Philosophy. By philosophy we understand the knowledge 
and rational explanation of phenomena as to their causes and 
significance. The term has been variously defined as " The 
science of things divine and human, and the causes in which 
they are contained ; " " the science of effects and their causes ; " 
" the science of the sufficient reason ; " " the science of things de- 
duced from first principles." All these definitions are of the 
same general import, and, more simply construed, signify that 
by the term philosophy is meant the understanding and explan- 
ation of phenomena of which the mind becomes aware either 
by observation or consciousness ; as to their causes, laws, and 
significance. 

To render a philosophy of any subject is simply to give a 
sufficiently full statement of the facts and contents of the sub- 
ject, and furnish a rational, that is, an intelligible and adequate, 
explanation of them. To know a thing and not know its causal 
grounds is imperfect knowledge — next door to absolute igno- 
rance — and opens the mind to all sorts of fancies and superstitions. 
To know a thing and also know its causes is enlarged knowl- 
edge, and closes the door of the mind against a mob of delusions, 
but does not furnish it perfect content. There remains still the 
question, for what ? — or, what does it signify ? to what end is it ? 
When an object is known as to what it is, and as to its cause, 
how it is, or by what power it is, and when additionally it is 
known as to why it is, for what end it is, we have reached true 
knowledge — science — philosophy. This by a law of the mind 
is its everlasting search ; until the attainment is reached it can 
have no fruition of content. It is the goal of rational existence. 

Experience. The term experience is thus defined by Web- 
ster : " Particular acquaintance with any matter by personal ob- 
servation or trial of it ; by feeling its effects ; by living through 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 11 

it." It is thus made the equivalent of personal knowledge of 
external facts and things, by perceiving them or by observation 
of any kind ; and of all internal states of feeling which emerge 
in consciousness, whether intellectual, emotional, or volitional. 
This is a broad use of the term ; and it may be doubted whether 
for strict accuracy it is not too broad. There would seem to be 
a sufficient difference between matters of observation and mat- 
ters of consciousness not to class them as identical. The one re- 
lates to matters objective, the other to matters subjective. The 
objective offers itself to experiment, the subjective to experi- 
ence. Experience more specifically relates to the internal states 
and feelings, existing as present, or recalled as past, conscious- 
nesses, through which one has passed or is passing. This is the 
sense in which it is more commonly used and in which it is in- 
variably used in these lectures. 

Whatever a man experiences he knows. It is the knowing 
that constitutes the experience. If he did not know the expe- 
rience he could not be said to have it. There is no consciousness 
of which we are not conscious or of which we have not knowledge. 

In this discussion I am to be employed specifically about 
facts — subjective states and feelings which emerge in conscious- 
ness ; therefore the most immediate and indisputable matters of 
knowledge. Theories, dogmas, speculative inference as to facts 
themselves have no place. Consciousness furnishes them. They 
do not require proof. The experience is the proof. They will ad- 
mit of no other. The proof of pain is that we feel it. The same 
is true of all subjective experiences. The proof of them is that 
we have them. 

The philosophy of these matters of experience comprises sim- 
ply the consciousness of them, the right understanding of their 
grounds and sources and their significance, or relation to ends 
to be served by them. 



12 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

This exhausts the subject, and leaves nothing further to place 
them in the line of rational or understood knowledges. We 
cannot explain how the soul receives subjective impressions. 
Consciousness itself is a final fact, and admits of no explanation. 
The furthest possible point to which we can push inquiry as to 
the facts themselves which emerge in consciousness is to find 
them and their causes, and the ends they serve. Many times we 
are compelled to stop short of this. We can simply know the 
facts. In such cases the philosophy of the facts remains impos- 
sible. If we can go further, and find how it is that the facts ex- 
ist and any ends which they are manifestly intended to serve, w r e 
have the entire philosophy of them. 

If we choose to use the term experience in the broadest sense 
as including matters of personal observation, then there is a dif- 
ference between an experience of Christianity and a Christian 
experience. An experience of Christianity is the result of per- 
sonal observation as to its effects on individuals, peoples, and 
institutions, its moral and social tendencies, how it affects wel- 
fare in respect of education, industrial habits, commercial eth- 
ics, and all things that enter into the general improvement and 
happiness of communities. One who by living with it has be- 
come acquainted with it so as to have knowledge of it on these 
points may be said to have experience of Christianity — he has 
seen and felt its workings. There is yet a deeper experience 
than these general effects of the system felt by many — in per- 
sonal influences which reach them through its teachings, which, 
consciously modify their thoughts, feeling, moral habits, and 
principles, and personal character — who yet have no Christian 
experience, but only experience of some Christian influences ; 
who are not. and well know themselves not to be, Christians. 
The experience in botlrthese kinds indicates something of 
what Christianity is, and is of high apologetical value. It points 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 13 

to a power for good in the system which the world needs, and, 
so, broadly indicates its probable truth ; and where the experi- 
ence is all one way, as, we are bold to say, it always is, con- 
demns revilers on their own experience. But it is not an experi- 
ence of this kind that we seek to illuminate — its matters do not 
emerge in our thesis in any form. 

It is worth while to observe further on this matter of experi- 
ence that, while matters of experience are relatively the clearest 
and most satisfactory among our knowledges, things about 
which we affirm with the greatest assurance that we do abso- 
lutely know, they are knowledges of 'which we can convey no 
adequate conception to minds that are wholly out of the plane 
of the experience. The language of experience is intelligible 
only to those who have something in common by which to in- 
terpret it. I was never so impressed with this fact and its im- 
portance as during the preparation of these lectures. Certain 
passages of Scripture have come to have an emphasis of mean- 
ing which I had not before discovered in them : " The natural 
man receiveth [or knoweth] not the things of the Spirit of God : 
for they are foolishness unto him : neither can he know them, 
for they are spiritually discerned ; " " It is given unto you to 
know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them 
[that are without] it is not given;" " Except a man be born 
again [or born from above], he cannot see [or discern] the king- 
dom of God ; " " If I have told you earthly things, and ye be- 
lieved not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things % " 
The import of which is, spiritual experiences cannot be appre- 
hended by an un spiritualized mind. To speak of them to such 
is to speak in a practically unknown tongue. The spiritual man 
lives in a world of spiritual things which to him is perfectly 
plain, but which is wholly foreign to an unspiritualized mind. 
Some things all minds have in common concerning which they 



14 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

are mutually intelligible to each other'; but the spiritual man 
has entered a realm which is foreign to his unspiritual friend, 
and when he speaks of it .there is nothing common between 
them to interpret his meaning — his speech is unintelligible. 
This is so important that I dwell for its further illustration. 
When two men understand the same language, so long as they 
converse together in it they are intelligible to each other; but 
if one of the two knows a language which the other does not, 
and he commences to use that, all connection is cut off between 
them as completely as if they had nothing in common. It is so 
when one speaks of an experience of which the other has no 
analogous experience. He may employ a language every term 
of which is understood, but he cannot make himself intelligible. 
Take two men, one of whom is blind. Both have perfect use 
of the same language, and on most subjects they converse intel- 
ligibly to each other; but on one subject speech to the blind 
man becomes utterly unintelligible, meaningless : the subject 
of color. To understand the meaning of that term he must 
have what he has not — eyes. Without eyes he is left to mere con- 
jecture. To the one who has eyes nothing is plainer, and to those 
who have eyes no speech is more intelligible than that which re- 
lates to color. It is easy to convey the idea of the minutest shades 
of difference in colors. The same rule applies to flavors, sounds, 
and, indeed, all matters of sensation. It is no less applicable to 
matters merely subjective — matters of consciousness. In order 
to intelligibility there must be something in common. 

Mutual experiences make mutual intelligibility under the 
greatest embarrassments. The soul has many languages through 
which it communicates to kindred souls — not one through 
which it can communicate with a soul wholly alien to it. Put 
a spiritualized soul, whose only speech-language is English, in a 
congregation of spiritualized German souls, and let the exer- 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 15 

cises of hymn and prayer and sermon and sacrament and testi- 
mony be s*ll in the unknown tongue, the spiritualized English 
soul will not be a foreigner ; there will be, intoning the unintelli- 
gible jargon of unmeaning sounds, something which it under- 
stands — the language of face and feature and tearful eye and 
voice which translates itself by the magic of a common experi- 
ence — and the sympathetic souls will recognize each other. But 
they can only interpret each other by a common experience. 
An-unspiritual mind is dead to spiritual things. Tt walks among 
them, but does not discern them ; it hears of them, but the lan- 
guage is unintelligible. 

It is because of this law that we find it impossible, even un- 
der the highest spiritual experiences, to form any satisfactory 
conception of heavenly things, heavenly beings, their modes of 
life and communication among themselves. Every one who 
has attempted to think along these lines is conscious of the dif- 
ficulty. The explanation is, the experiences are out of our 
plane — there is not enough in common between us to enable us 
to form a conception except of the most general kind, and even 
of such conceptions it is impossible to know how much, if any, 
truth there is in them. The highest certainty we can reach is 
that there is a spiritual world comprising divers orders and 
grades of life, from the Infinite to the most recent and infantile 
spirit, and that their life is the most exalted. We are wholly 
unable to fill out or interpret these general phrases, simply be- 
cause they are out of our plane and our earthly experience has so 
little in common with them. In like manner and for the same 
reason are the experiences of a spiritualized soul unintelligible to 
an unspiritualized soul. Their planes are in this respect uneven — 
without correspondence. What is perfectly intelligible to the one 
is not intelligible to the other ; what moves the one does not move 
the other ; what appeals to the one does not appeal to the other. 



16 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

Christian experiences are the experiences of a soul in a fallen 
world ; that is, the plane in which it lives and by which all its 
experiences are modified. Its experiences interpret nothing out 
of its plane. What the experiences of Adam would have been 
had he not sinned, and become sensualized, for this reason we 
can but very imperfectly conceive. So far as there was in the 
plane of his life any thing in common with the life we live we 
find it not difficult to form a sufficiently clear conception. The 
general effect of the external world upon him ; his physical 
sensations ; his love for Eve ; his round of daily employment in 
tilling the garden ; his growth of knowledge — things of this 
kind, we fancy, there is enough in common between his life and 
ours to put us en rapport, so that we get, as we suppose, a tol- 
erable understanding of his experiences in these respects. But 
when we attempt to pass beyond this, and try to think of his 
subjective consciousnesses, or what they would have been had 
he not sinned, and the kind of man they would have made of 
him, Ave find ourselves in a plane which we cannot travel — our 
guides forsake us. What the daily pabulum of a sinless soul 
in a sinless world would be we do not know ; we have nothing 
by which to interpret. We are so accustomed to tainted air 
that we can hardly imagine respiration possible in any other; 
so used to the contact of evil, its absolute enswathement every 
moment, that we cannot conceive life going on without it. We 
are so used to conflict and trouble growing out of sin that we 
find it difficult to conceive what would be the use and function 
of a life in a world where sin did not exist. The experiences 
of an unsinning and unsinful soul going forward through a 
life-time in a world which the blight of sin had never reached, 
in which nothing existed that came of sin, in which all things 
were in holy harmony ; the experiences of such a soul so in- 
sphered, I suspect, if recited to us would find in us as little 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTrAN EXPERIENCE. 17 

response as a recitation in an unknown dialect, it would have so 
much in it above our comprehension. 

It ought to be noted yet further that every experience is col- 
ored by the subject of the experience. I mean by this that 
precisely the same experience reports itself differently in minds 
of dissimilar temperaments, degrees of intelligence, antecedent 
habits, prejudices, preconceptions, education, and ruling ideas. 
This fact must be taken account of in dealing with Christian 
experience. The subjects of Christian experience are extremely 
various. 

It is customary to lump Christians in a class and sinners in a 
class, forgetful of the fact that there are wide dissimilarities in 
each class. In a fundamental sense there are but the two 
classes, but in fact there are the widest diversities in each class. 

Take the class sinners as including all unregenerate men. 
The common fact is that they all need salvation and must pass 
through the same experience of conviction, repentance, faith, 
pardon, and regeneration to obtain it ; but the manner in which 
they are exercised will differ widely as possible. To under- 
stand this the class must be broken up and viewed in its several 
parts. A is a criminal of the deepest dye ; B is ignorant and 
beastly ; C has never indulged in any excesses, has been scru- 
pulously moral ; D is impulsive and excitable ; E is cool and 
self-governing ; F is intellectual and thoughtful ; G has 
grown up amid prayers and under careful Christian nurture. 
It is impossible that these circumstances should not color their 
experiences. In one case there will be sharp and marked con- 
trasts, in another there will be no distinctly marked change ; one 
will enter the kingdom with a rush of feeling, another will feel 
but slight emotion ; one will be able to point to the day and 
hour of his conversion, another comes into the light gradually ; 
one is noisy and clamorous, another is quiet and silent. 



18 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

It is worth while to say yet farther that as there is a differ- 
ence between a Christian experience and an experience of 
Christianity so also all of a Christian's experiences are not 
Christian experience. I mean this : that Christian experience 
is a peculiar phase of a soul's experience touching its spiritual 
relations which a Christian only knows any thing about ; they 
are the specific experiences which characterize him as a Chris- 
tian. But a Christian is a man, and over and above his peculiar 
experiences which come to him as a Christian and constitute 
him such — exist only as he is a Christian — he has a broad belt 
of experiences which come to him as a man. They are a Chris- 
tian's experiences but they are also the experiences of men that 
are not Christians, therefore they cannot be said to be Christian 
experiences. 

Christian defined. To determine exactly what is meant by 
the phrase " Christian experience " it is necessary that we define 
the term Christian. Though the term is one in common use, 
and well understood as to its general import, it is by no means 
explicit. There are widely variant meanings attached to it as 
employed by different persons even among ourselves. Popular 
usage falls entirely short of its strict meaning, and so becomes 
not only confusing but dangerously misleading ; the radical idea 
is wholly lost, and something else, often not even suggesting 
it, is put in its place. Christians themselves, and not unfre- 
quently eminently orthodox Christian teachers, fall into the 
6nare. 

Were a native of the Congo valley asked what he under- 
stands by the term he would perhaps answer, a A Christian is 
a man who comes in ships to barter New England rum for 
elephants' tusks." A Chinese would vary the definition some- 
what and say : " A Christian is an outside barbarian with a white 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN- EXPERIENCE. 19 

skin, who deals in opium and other foreign commodities." In 
fact these are prevalent definitions among these heathen peoples*. 
There is a remote ground for the perversion. The people who 
carry on these nefarious practices publish themselves as Chris- 
tians, and are so recognized in works of literature and history 
and in the popular language of the world. 

If we come nearer home the term, as popularly employed, is 
scarcely less vague or less a perversion. Broadly, all who are 
born in Christian countries are called Christians : the — worse 
than the average heathen — rum-seller, the imbruted sot, the de- 
bauchee, the vilest creatures, men and women. So does the 
name cover all sin and shame. 

The historian or statistician defines a Christian as one who 
is a citizen of a Christian state or commonwealth. Webster, 
our great English lexicographer, defines a Christian thus : " One 
who professes to believe, or is assumed to believe, in the relig- 
ion of Christ : especially one whose inward and outward life 
is conformed to the doctrines of Christ." 

If w T e seek the deeper significance which professed Christians 
attach to the term we make scarcely a nearer approach to its 
true meaning. An average German would probably define a 
Christian as one who had been baptized and confirmed in the 
Church of Luther ; an Anglican would broaden the definition 
so as to include communicants of the Church of Henry the 
Eighth who have received the sacraments at the hands of an 
apostolically consecrated priest ; a Romanist would exclude 
these, and limit the term to believers in the infallibility of 
Leo XIII and such as attend mass and obtain absolution ; 
a liberal of the modern type would extend it so as to include 
any who practice philanthropy and have outgrown faith in a 
supernatural revelation or a divine Christ; others, more strict, 
would insist that a Christian is one who professes an orthodox 



20 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

creed and strictly observes the rites and ceremonies of some 
evangelical Church. 

Recently one of the Christian weeklies sent out a request to 
a large number of representative writers and thinkers embrac- 
ing men and women of note — ministers and laymen of all phases 
of faith — asking that they would return answer to the question, 
"What is it to be a Christian ? " * 

It must be admitted that the question is so phrased as to be 
somewhat indefinite. The object was undoubtedly to elicit an 
answer to the question, "What is it that constitutes a man a 
Christian ? " The demand was strict definition. The answers 
in most cases show that the respondents had in mind this ques- 
tion rather : Who by the most liberal construction may be in- 
cluded in the class Christian ? To this latter question strict 
definition was not required, but merely the setting forth of 
some comprehensive test characteristic. The answers, therefore, 
are not to be viewed as definitions, but simply general state- 
ments. But taken in this looser sense the answers are remark- 
able, as showing the posture of the writer's mind with regard to 
the deeper questions, How does a man become a Christian ? and, 
What are the constitutive elements of his Christian character \ 

The definitions arc all of them in one form and another beau- 
tiful and clear statements of some truth. There is not one of 
them that does not affirm a fact which characterizes a Christian. 
Most of them set forth a fact which implies the existence of 
every other essential fact, and so clearly points out a Christian. 
To be a Christian one must be what is affirmed, and being what 
is affirmed he will probably be a Christian. So far they desig- 
nate a Christian. Seven of the thirty do not necessarily imply 
a Christian at all, though a Christian implies them. 

Five of the thirty contain all the essential elements of true 

* See note A, p. 180. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 21 

definition. Several approximate definition, and only fail by 
being too brief. Of all, Dr. Whedon's is the most complete. 

There is apparent in most of those which approximate 
definition a manifest desire to broaden the definition, and a 
spirit of compromise which is not healthful in these times. 

To determine what it is to be a Christian, that is, what is a 
Christian, it is necessary to take into the definition an account 
of how a man becomes such : what it is that makes him a Chris- 
tian. He is not born a Christian. He is not a Christian 
by virtue of his being a man. He does not make himself a 
Christian. There is a process through which he passes with- 
out which he cannot be a Christian. It is what he is after 
the process, and at its outcome, that constitutes him a Chris- 
tian. The experiences through which he passes in order to 
become a Christian are so essential that he cannot be a 
Christian without them — they are essential and necessary con- 
stituents. They must, therefore, be taken into the definition. 
When these subjective elementary processes are completed he 
has become and is a Christian, and not without or before them. 
They make him a Christian. 

After he has become a Christian, what is it to be a Christian 
resolves itself into the question, How does he show himself to 
be a Christian? What kind of a man is he in subjective temper 
and objective life ? What is it in these respects that differentiates 
him from other men? As a Christian how must he live? what 
principles must govern him ? what must be the inner and outer 
facts ? These inner and outer facts are essential, but they are 
fruits, not the constituting essence. The essential thins: is the 
subjective life implanted in the soul. The outer expression is 
proof and incident, and as such sina qua non, but to cite them 
and leave the implanted life out, from which they spring as fruit, 
is to leave out the constituting essence. The outer form may 



22 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

exist as imitation merely, and instead of having a Christian we 
have but an imitator, paste for a diamond, possibly a sheer hypo- 
crite without the reality. The exterior manifestation is not the 
reality, and it does not necessarily prove the reality — it is simply 
external, and may be put on. The inner subjective life is the 
essential thing, and when it exists the external form must exist 
as growth or product of the essence, and not as mere imitation 
— it is the necessary form which the life principle takes. Chris- 
tianity is not put on, but is put in, as leaves are not put on a 
tree but spring from the constituting germ. As a tree without 
leaves would be a deformity — in fact, could not exist — so a pro- 
fessed Christian without the fruits of holy character would be a 
monstrosity — not a Christian. 

There are two errors to be avoided — both equally fatal ; the 
error of supposing one can be a Christian by clothing himself 
with mere objective moralities ; and the no less dangerous 
error of assuming the possibility of subjective grace existing 
apart from external moralities. The subjective life is the soul, 
the exterior life the body. When out of a holy soul we have 
a holy life, we have a Christian — not otherwise; "the good 
tree is known by its fruits." It is the vital germ at last, how- 
ever, which determines the quality both of the tree and the 
fruit. The essential thing is the vital germ. 

It should be remembered that neither the tree nor the fruit 
is always or necessarily what it seems to be. We cannot, 
therefore, judge infallibly by appearance. Yet we must judge 
by appearance, with the reservation that He who searcheth the 
heart only knoweth what is in man, and his judgment is a right- 
eous judgment. 

It should be remembered further that, after all, and despite 
the wide latitude of indeiiniteness attached to the term, there is 
and can be no indeh'niteness in the fact. The term has its 



rniLosornY of christian experience. 23 

metes and bounds — its inclusions and exclusions. It does not 
embrace all. It does exclude some. We may broaden or nar- 
row it, but it will not alter the fact. 

What then is the meaning we attach to the term in the following 
lectures ? Our answer must be in two parts. First, negatively : 
A Christian is not such by virtue of his having been born in a 
Christian country, or of Christian parents ; or by having been 
baptized and confirmed in a Christian church by an apostolically 
consecrated priest, bishop, or pope ; or by the personal accept- 
ance or belief of the most orthodox scriptural creed ; or by the 
strictest observance of holy rites and sacraments ; or by reiter- 
ated professions of faith and of regeneration ; or by the most 
exemplary external moralities and careful ritualistic rules of 
living ; or by noble charities and philanthropies. These may 
all have more or less relative values ; some of them are neces- 
sary concomitants as incidents and fruits, but they may all exist 
and still the essential tiling be wanting:. 

Second, positively : A Christian comprehensively is a child 
of God by regeneration. This is the all inclusive, absolutely 
essential thing. It presupposes and is conditioned by certain 
antecedents, and does not exist without them ; these are convic- 
tion of sin, repentance, faith, and forgiveness. Regeneration, 
which, as matter of experience, always follows or is coetaneous 
with these subjective states, and never precedes them or occurs 
without them, is the culminating fact, and is result of a direct act 
of God upon the soul, by which it is engrafted into Christ and 
becomes participant of his life, and so becomes a Christian soul. 
By the divine life thus imparted the forgiven soul is delivered 
from the guilt and bondage of sin, and has implanted in it a 
principle of righteousness which makes the sin which it for- 
merly loved hateful to it ; purifies its affections, desires, and 
motives, and strengthens its will to the obedience of the law of 



24 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

God, and fills it with love to God and universal love to man. 
From out this soul, thus renewed with a new life, emanates if 
unhindered, as a fountain flows from a perennial spring, a contin- 
uous stream of virtuous and holy living. The process by which 
this great change is brought about is a divinely established 
order, and the consciousness of the soul in passing through it 
and living it constitutes Christian experience. To become and 
be a Christian one must have this conscious experience. To the 
virtuous and holy living, which includes all duty toward God, 
and toward men, and meaner things, and toward the person 
himself, which springs from the newly implanted life germ, 
should be added the inward experiences of conscious faith and 
trust, and holy motive and purpose, and the peace and joy 
which Gods give to them that love him. The total experience 
is that of affiliation — the consciousness of sonship. 

It is not a necessity of this definition to assume that all real 
Christians are equally conscious of having passed through these 
successive stages of experience, or that they shall in every case 
he able clearly to discriminate these elements to themselves, much 
less logically state them to others. This indeed is certainly not 
true ; but the absence of a vivid consciousness of such subject- 
ive phenomena does not necessarily imply their non-existence. 
"With many, each special stage in the process — awakening, pen- 
itence, faith, the assurance of pardon, the inward transforma- 
tion — is matter of vivid consciousness and absolute certainty : 
with other many, who give abundant evidence of their thor- 
ough Christian character by their fruits in temper and their 
practical daily life — the great inward fact of their filial relation 
to God — there is no such vivid consciousness. The former 
speak confidently, often, perhaps, overboldly, of their experi- 
ence. The latter speak with trembling modesty and even 
hesitancy if they speak at all — they can fix no day or date 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 25 

when the great phenomenal change took place : they do know, 
however, that they love God, and their lives are redolent of 
grace — full of the fruits of righteousness. That in every case 
there has been the great subjective change, the inward trans- 
forming experience, however dimly perceived in its successive 
stages, there can be no rational doubt. The total outcome of 
the regenerate life of the soul is the same in each case of gen- 
uine Christian character. 

Personal temperament, environments, habits, education, and 
such modifying influences, which vary so widely, furnish the 
explanation to a large extent of the diverse experiences among 
those who give full evidence of genuine Christian character: 
" There is a diversity of operation but one Spirit " and the 
same result 

It is no part of the purpose of these lectures to undertake to 
prove that there have been and are men in abundance who 
have passed through the experience here described. The tes- 
timony of millions all along through the Christian ages, from 
Paul the chief est of the apostles to the most recent convert, 
must be relied on to establish that fact. If it fail no other 
evidence on that point could be of any avail. 



26 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 



LECTURE 2. 
IMPLICATIONS AND CONDITIONING GROUNDS OF EXPERIENCE. 

There are three conceivable ways of dealing with the alleged 
facts of Christian experience. These are — first, to deny them 
and resolve them into mere delusion or hypocrisies. But as the 
facts are facts of consciousness, attested by a vast multitude of 
intelligent and, by every proof, conscientious and honest wit- 
nesses, it is obvious that this ground cannot be maintained. 
Denial becomes mere effrontery. To make it good would re- 
quire that men suppose they have consciousness which they do 
not have, or that the vast multitude of witnesses in the case 
are a set of knaves who have conspired through the ages to im- 
pose upon their fellows by declaring that they are conscious of 
things of which they are not conscious. This explanation may 
be satisfactory to minds utterly blinded by prejudice but can 
have no weight with candid and sensible men. Men will still 
believe that a fact of consciousness is knowable, and men will 
still believe that when a vast multitude of good men testify 
that they have been and are conscious of certain states of feel- 
ing they really are so conscious. As a philosophy the theory 
of delusion or hypocrisy is a failure — has nothing to rest upon. 

The second conceivable method is to admit the facts of con- 
sciousness and explain them as the product of delusive ideas. 
In this theory the feelings are admitted to be real but ground- 
less ; the offspring of mere imagination — chimeras. The theory 
is that the mind invents or accepts the idea of God, and the 
idea of a law of God which he imposes on man, and the idea 
that man is under obligation to obey this law, and the idea 
that he has broken the law which he ought to have kept, 
and the idea that his breach of the law has made him guilty, 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 27 

and the idea that lie is exposed to punishment, and the idea of 
an atonement, and the idea of repentance and faith as a con- 
dition of forgiveness. They postulate that in point of fact there 
are no realities answering to these ideas ; bnt the Christian per- 
suades himself to believe there are answering realities. Out of 
this belief of his springs the feeling of guilt, and the feeling 
of repentance, and the feeling of pardon, and all other feelings 
which go to make np what is called Christian experience. The 
feeling of guilt exists, but there is no guilt; the feeling of par- 
don exists, but there is no pardon ; and the other feelings ex- 
ist, but all of them are product of a mere belief of the mind 
self-invented and self-imposed. All there is in the case is a 
set of fancies and a set of feelings which grow. out of them. 
These feelings are called Christian experience. This is the 
only theory of negation or dissent which approaches a philoso- 
phy. It is an attempt at a philosophy, and it is not without 
some plausible grounds, which it is due should be stated. 

It is a fact that mere fancies do produce the profoundest feel- 
ings, together with the profoundest conviction of the reality of 
things which do not exist ; as, for instance, a man passing a 
grave-yard in a dark night sees a white object — a bone six 
inches high. His imagination transforms it to a ghost. It 
towers up to the height of six feet ; it moves and approaches 
him and gesticulates. He sees its waving shroud ; he detects 
its human features ; he is profoundly moved with terror. It 
was not a ghost ; it was but a bone. His idea of it trans- 
formed it and it terrified him. Thus a fancy has power to 
move us. 

In fact all subjective feelings are awakened by thoughts. 
The mental action is always first. Feeling responds to the 
conception in the mind. All movement in the spiritual world 
is from ideas ; all experience subjective is born of ideas. 



28 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

This fact explains the terror awakened by superstitions. Any 
thing supposed to be real awakens in the consciousness a cor- 
responding feeling. Errors when accepted and believed affect 
the mind just as truths do. This law must be admitted. 
There is no possibility of rejecting it. 

It is a just question, therefore, Does this fact in any way 
affect the validity and apologetical value of Christian experi- 
ence ? If so, how and to what extent? and what is the treat- 
ment required ? We are compelled to answer, it does have a 
direct bearing and demands consideration. If the experiences 
can be explained as the product of delusive ideas, as any feel- 
ing may be, that being shown it takes all virtue out of Chris- 
tianity and reduces it to the common level of any other super- 
stition ; that is, shows that there is nothing in it but delusion, 
and a delusion which springs from delusion. If the theory 
could be made good that the experiences are the offspring of 
chimeras, as it is admitted they sometimes are, the showing 
would destro} r the system. 

What, then, becomes necessary to determine the case ? To 
this we answer, nothing is necessary as to the experiences 
themselves. These are admitted to be genuine. The wdiole 
matter involved turns upon the question, Are the ideas out of 
which the experiences emerge chimeras — mere fancies — per- 
versions of reality ? This must be determined by the mental 
laws by which we try and test the validity of our ideas or of 
the objects of our conception. 

What is necessary to the theory proposed is to show that its 
assumption is true — that is, that there are no realities answer- 
ing to the ideas out of which the conscious experiences or the 
subjective feelings arise. The debate turns upon the truth of 
these ideas. Christianity is responsible to make them good. 
Doubt is responsible for the showing that they are chimerical. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 29 

The ideas declared to be chimerical are these : The personality 
of man, the existence of God, the existence of moral law, the 
fact of human gnilt, the experience of pardon. 

It is obvious that the sponsors for this theory have set a hard 
task for themselves. It will take some time to work out all 
these points. It will require some sturdy wrestling to prove 
that God is a chimera. It will take still more time to convince 
the average man that there is no such thing as human sin 
while its blistering sores are felt in every soul and revoltingly 
visible in every hamlet. It would be interesting to see the 
defenders of this theory put the case to a jury, and- hear the 
argument by which they would prove that murder and lust and 
incest and cruelty and the rum fiend are immaculate. But I 
commend to these theorists to begin the defense of their theory, 
not by grappling with either of the points mentioned, but with 
this rather : that they may get their faculties in good trim for other 
heavy work let them explain to us how a molecule got into the 
business of invention and how it became such an adept as to evolve 
in every human soul the entire ethical code. When they shall 
have answered this question it will be time to set them to some 
other tasks which their theory involves. 

We cannot here enter the polemic on any of these points, as 
we have only days, and not years, for the discussion. It is safe 
to say that the advocates of the theory, when they contemplate 
the difficulty of the task before them, will never undertake its 
defense ; and it is also safe to assume that the mention of the 
matters which the theory involves condemns it to prompt and 
inevitable rejection as irrational and impossible. It perishes by 
mere statement — without an argument. Its existence in any 
mind is in proof that that mind has never considered it ; that it 
exists purely as an irrational prejudice. To call it a philosophy 
is to dignify stupidity with a worthy but desecrated name. 



30 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

If any thing more should be necessary as a justification for 
dismissing this theory without argumentative refutation, it will 
be found in the statement and defense of the third theory. Its 
unfolding and rational defense contains the refutation of all 
competing theories. 

The remaining theory is that which we defend — the Christian 
theory. It is based on the truth of consciousness and the 
honesty of those who affirm that they are conscious of certain 
subjective experiences. It affirms the facts. Its mode of ex- 
plaining them is that they have real grounds. It adduces what 
these real grounds are. The grounds adduced must be adequate 
to account fur the subjective effects developed in experience. 
It finds in the adequate conditioning grounds the real source of 
the conscious effect. A rational explanation is reached. We 
have thus all the requirements of a philosophy of Christian 
experience. 

We have seen that every other theory put forward, and every 
other conceivable theory, fails not only to explain the facts, but 
also that they must be rejected on other grounds of error and 
falsehood. To inadequacy they add inadmissibility as irrational, 
and not merely as irrational but as impossible. They meet 
none of the requirements of a philosophy. They are mere 
" hruta fulmena." 

When there arc several theories wbich seem equally adequate 
Xo account for phenomena, and when none of them contain in- 
admissible elements, the mind may be left in dub to as to which 
shall be accepted as the actual theory. But when there is but 
one theory which will account for the facts, and when against 
that theory no real objection can be urged, that theory of right 
demands acceptance; it, on rational principles, has right of 
way. 

That is precisely the case we have here, which we shall now 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. SI 

proceed to -show. The point is to show the adequate grounds 
of Christian experiences. For any experience there must 
exist certain conditioning and adequate causes. No experience 
is uncaused. 

To put clearly before us our task we restate in brief the ex- 
perience the philosophy of which we are to render. It embraces 
live discrete facts of consciousness : (a) Consciousness of guilt ; 
(h) conseiousnecs of repentance ; (c) consciousness of faith ; 
(d) consciousness of pardon and forgiveness ; (e) consciousness 
of a new life springing in the soul; with other subsequent 
experiences which need not here be mentioned. The contents 
of these phenomena of consciousness will be more fully de- 
veloped in subsequent lectures. 

Our first business will be to state what are the implications 
of the experience. It is true that any experience furnishes its 
own proof and cannot be required to furnish any other; and it 
is also true that any experience is proof of all its necessary 
implications and conditioning grounds. Its existence demands 
their existence. The knowledge of any effect contains in it the 
knowledge that whatever is necessary to its existence exists. But 
to render a philosophy of an experience, or any effect, it is 
necessary to consider and understand what the conditioning 
implications are, and to furnish a rational vindication of them 
if necessary ; in any event they must be vindicable. If an 
alleged implication is beset with insurmountable difficulties — is 
not rationally vindicable — the theory is driven to the expedient 
of alleging mystery; that is, the admission that there is no 
philosophy, that is, no rational explanation, of the phenomena. 
In such a case the mind is disturbed with uncertainty. The 
ground of rational certitude is taken from under it, not as to 
the experience, about which it is impossible it should be un- 
certain, but as to the alleged implications or conditioning. 



32 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

grounds. In the presence of insurmountable difficulty as to the 
alleged conditioning grounds the mind is rationally shaken as 
to it, and is compelled to entertain the thought that possibly 
there is some other explanation ; that is, possibly the true 
philosophy has not now been reached. If, on the other hand, the 
alleged conditioning grounds of the phenomena are adequate 
to explain them, and if they are rationally vindicable, and if 
none other can be alleged, the inevitable conviction is that we 
have reached the real explanation, and the mind settles dowu 
into certitude and content. It has reached the solid ground of 
philosophical certainty. 

Now, what are the implications of Christian experience ? The 
facts are not the implications ; they are the experience. The 
implications are whatever is necessary to their existence — those 
things without which the experience could not be. What are 
they ? Keep in mind what the experiences are, and follow us 
while we find their implications. 

We start with the first experience named : sense of guilt. 
This is common to all souls. 

Now the adequate explanation of the sense of guilt is the fact 
of sin ; and, as we have seen, there is and can be no other ex- 
planation. The knowledge by the soul tha,t it is guilty includes 
not simply a feeling of guilt, but a knowledge of the reality of 
that, whatever it is, which makes it feel guilty. That which 
creates the sense of guilt is the knowledge the soul has of the 
fact that it has sinned. The reality of sin no man can dispute. 
That which we inquire after now is what implications underlie 
this fact of guilt. 

"What is guilt ? It is desert of punishment for violating a law 
which ought to have been obeyed, and which the violator knew 
and felt ought to have been obeyed. This is not a mere lexical 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 33 

definition of the term. It is the exact meaning which the soul 
itself attaches to it when it predicates guilt of itself ; it is just 
what is in consciousness. When it says I am guilty it means 
to affirm I have broken a law which I knew I ought to have 
kept, and my consciousness is that I am condemned — I feel it, 
I know it. Every soul knows perfectly what it means by having 
precisely that experience. 

My first point is that the experience of guilt is conditioned 
on the spiritual nature of man. 

Guilt is spiritualistic. It demonstrates the spiritual world. 
If there were no other fact it, standing alone, necessitates that 
its subject should be a self-conscious, intelligent, free, responsible 
spirit. It is impossible to predicate guilt of a thing under the 
law of necessitation. Let any one undertake to conceive of a 
being or thing that has no intelligence, no self-consciousness, that 
knows nothing, being guilty and feeling guilty, he will imme- 
diately discover that it is impossible for him to think it ; or let him 
conceive of a being that is driven by necessity, that has no power 
in itself to determine its states and acts, that it is what it is by 
imposed constitution, and does what it does with no power to the 
alternative, he will find no difficulty to think such a being, but 
he will find it impossible to attach the idea of guilt to it ; for 
that he must find another kind of subject : an intelligent and 
self-determining being and one who has the idea and feeling of 
oughtness, or obligation to a definite course of action. If the 
molecular universe is under the law of necessity, which is the 
last and unquestioned deliverance of science, the very norm of 
science, the molecular universe excludes guilt. In that realm it 
cannot be found — it cannot even be thought as possible. Its 
presence proclaims a non-molecular, that is, a spiritual, subject. 
The same result follows from all other phenomena of Christian 



34 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE, 

experience : repentance, faith, pardon, regeneration, adoption. 
These predicates require as conditioning ground a spiritual 
being. Try to think of a molecular being, a being composed of 
material atoms, a compound of " carbonic acid, water, and 
ammonia" — Huxley's definition of man — organized and driven 
by necessity, assuming to itself to be an ego, and then predicat- 
ing of itself I am guilty, and, on the ground of guilt for being 
what it is by necessity, repenting, exercising faith, and suppli- 
cating pardon, and then receiving pardon from the being who 
made it what it is ; and it will at once be discovered how 
utterly absurd and ridiculous the thing is. Nothing is plainer 
than that guilt and pardon, and all their attendant and concomi- 
tant experiences, require a spiritual subject, under law but free 
as to its action, and possessing alternative power. Christian 
philosophy is responsible for this underlying, conditioning 
postulate. It rests upon it. If it can be shaken the ground of 
both guilt and pardon will be removed. Disprove the 
spirituality of man, the whole theory topples into chaos. The 
phenomena of feeling would, however, remain to be explained. 
With the spirituality of man as conditioning ground the 
phenomena are perfectly intelligible. Without it reason be- 
comes confounded, and is compelled to admit that it has no 
explanation to offer. 

While a non-free being cannot be guilty by possibility, it is 
obvious that a being who knows his law, and has power to 
obey it, and feels the obligation to obey it, cannot but be guilty 
if he violates it, and only a free being can violate its law. Guilt 
demonstrates, and does not merely render probable, the per- 
sonality of man; that is, that* he is an intelligent and free 
spirit. There is no explanation possible of the fact without 
the implication. 

I have said that guilt is spiritualistic ; that there can be no 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 35 

guilt without a free personal subject; but I now say there can 
be a free personal subject without guilt. Guilt necessitates a 
personal subject, but a personal subject does not necessitate 
guilt. There are, we may safely believe, millions of personal 
subjects who know nothing of guilt. But there is not one being 
who can feel guilt and not be a free spirit. 

The idea of pardon becomes absurd in the absence of con- 
scious freedom on the part of the subject of pardon. Pardon 
for what ? For being or doing what it was impossible to the 
subject to avoid ? Pardon by whom ? By the rjeing who neces- 
sitated the action ? Both guilt, which involves personal fault, and 
pardon, which implies penalty, are fatal to any system of mate- 
rialistic necessity ; and no less so to any system of necessitating 
agency of God in respect to acts or states which are assumed to 
involve guilt. Pardon to an unfree being is as absurd as par- 
don to a material substance for being influenced by the law of 
gravitation or any other law. Right and wrong, as ethical 
terms, are meaningless as applied to any unfree act or state, 
whether in the spiritual or material universe. The sense of 
right and wrong to an unfree being is impossible. The sense 
of obligation to one act or state as against another act or state 
to an unfree being is a delusion and a snare. The entire eth- 
ical system perishes under the idea of necessity. Thus funda- 
mental to all ethical experiences, such as sense of obligation to 
any given thing, feeling of guilt for any given thing, repent- 
ance for any given thing, or pardon for any given thing, is the 
idea of freedom in the case. 

My second point is that Christian, experience requires a per- 
sonal God, and is conditioned upon that ground. 

Guilt is also theistic. There can be no guilt without God. 
If it requires a free subject it also requires a binding law. There 



36 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

can be no guilt without a law which imposes obligation on the 
subject, but which at the same time does not necessitate him. 
But a law which imposes obligation to obedience must be authori- 
tative, and must be felt to be so ; otherwise neither the idea 
nor sense nor fact of obligation could be felt ; and without 
these, and not simply without these ideas but also without the 
absolute fact of obligatoriness, it is impossible that guilt should 
exist. But a law to be obligatory and authoritative must be 
instituted and enforced by a being who has the right and also 
the power to enact and enforce it. Without such a being there 
can be no law and no guilt. Guilt, therefore, has as necessary 
condition precedent God. Allow the fact of guilt, it is impos- 
sible to disallow the fact of God. The possibility of the one 
necessitates the actuality of the other. In the last result guilt 
involves, that is, it is of its essence, that there is an oughtness 
and an oughtnotness ; and these ideas have no standing-ground 
outside of God. The ethic is in # him and of him. Take him 
away, the entire ethical system perishes. But if now we pass 
beyond the experience of guilt to the experience of pardon we 
find as an implication or conditioning ground of this further 
experience not simply the idea and fact of God, as Author and 
Administrator of law, enforcing obligation ; we do still find 
this, but we find additionally a being who has the right and the 
power to cancel guilt, and one who exercises that power and 
right. For this implication Christian philosojmy is responsible ; 
that is, it must be able to render a rational account of it. It 
demands that there is a being who is above all law except the 
law he finds in his own nature, and who has the right and obli- 
gation to his own nature to enact and administer laws over all 
other beings. 

There is theism without guilt. Heaven is theistic ; holiness 
is theistic ; all angels are theists. There can be a God in a 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 37 

universe in which no guilt is, but there can be no guilt in a 
universe where no God is. Guilt is proof of a God. 

Pardon implies five things : (a) that there is nothing in the 
nature of guilt that renders it absolutely irremissible under all 
circumstances : if it were, pardon would forever be impossible ; 
(b) that there is nothing in the nature of God or in his admin- 
istrative relations to the universe that renders pardon absolutely 
impossible to him, otherwise guilt would be absolutely irremis- 
sible and pardon could not exist ; (c) that in order to terminate 
guilt there must be an administrative act of pardon : it cannot 
terminate itself ; (d) that there is a disposition on the part of 
God to exercise the pardoning power ; (e) that there is nothing 
in the circumstances of guilt, or in the nature of God, or in his 
administrative relations to the universe, which absolutely de- 
mands that he should in any case exercise the pardoning power 
unconditionally. 

These principles we regard as of fundamental importance, 
but time will not permit us to enter upon the polemic which 
would be demanded for their support. One of the five, how- 
ever, we feel called upon to note more at length ; namely, that 
the fact of pardon implies not simply the power and right to 
pardon, but also a disposition to do so. If God were not dis- 
posed to pardon it is impossible there should be any pardon, 
since it is impossible to conceive of his doing any thing to 
which he is absolutely indisposed. But if the exercise of the 
pardoning power depended solely on his disposition to pardon 
it would require that it should be exercised in every case. 
There could then be no distinction between righteousness and 
unrighteousness in his administration. The ethical system 
would be plunged into chaos. The disposition to pardon must, 
therefore, find a limit to its exercise both in his nature and in 
the general welfare of the universe. Thus we find that with 



88 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

the disposition to pardon revealed in the fact of pardon, there 
mast be conditions on which he will exercise the power. The 
disposition is not a disposition to pardon indiscriminately, uni- 
versally, or on the principle of arbitrary selection, or in any 
case unconditionally. He will pardon when the interests of 
righteousness, that is, of right administration, will permit it. 

The experience requires as a conditioning ground not simply 
a personal God, but an infinitely holy God. It requires that 
his holiness should not be simply the holiness of immaculate 
purity that cannot tolerate moral impurity — it does require that 
— but also the holiness of infinite and eternal love, that must 
include in it compassion for the sinful, and that must in all 
possible ways seek to save any who may have sinned ; in all 
possible ways, which means ways possible to the ethical nature 
of God and the ethical nature of sinning creatures. 

My third point is, Christian experience is Christie j that 
is, it requires Christ as a conditioning ground. That this is so 
theologically and scripturally is not what is meant. That would 
resolve itself into a mere question of what the Bible teaches. 
But that is not the matter we have in hand. We are not at 
present set to find what the Bible teaches. That were compar- 
atively an easy task. It is ours — a much more difficult task — to 
find the philosophy of our experience. 

And the point we now make is that the experience itself 
cannot be explained without Christ, and is explained with 
Christ. ISTo Christ, no Christian experience ; or no possible ex- 
planation of the experience. 

The experii nee to which we now particularly call attention is 
that of pardon. The existence of the race as guilty and needing 
pardon is condition precedent to pardon, and in a future discussion 
it will appear that that fact requires Christ as its explanation. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 39 

The guilty race lias its existence in him, and could not exist 
without him, on fundamental ethical grounds, and not on mere 
scriptural grounds ; but that is not the point we at present seek 
to develop. 

The point we now make is that the experience of pardon im- 
plicates Christ, and cannot be explained without him. We 
have already shown that pardon, which is an administrative act 
of God, implies a disposition on his part to pardon ; but we 
have also shown that the disposition could not result in uncon- 
ditional pardon, since that would subvert the ethical system. 
Pardon, if administered, must be on conditions which would 
preserve the holiness of the administration. Christ furnishes 
that condition in his atoning work, and this appears in the ex- 
perience. The experience is not simply pardon, but pardon 
conditioned by atonement in Christ. It is not pardon without 
Christ, but pardon through Christ. This is not simply the 
teaching of the Scriptures, but it is the experience. 

The Christian experience is that pardon is received on two 
conditioning grounds — repentance toward God and faith in 
Jesus Christ. When this repentance is adequate and faith is 
exercised, the soul becomes conscious of pardon, and not until 
that. The faith is faith in Christ as an atoning Saviour. 

Now this fact of the administration proves one of two things : 
either that the pardoning act is based upon a pure fiction and a 
faith which is utterly false, or that there is a real atoning 
Christ who conditions the pardon. If we take the former view 
it will require that God conditions pardon upon a fiction, and 
that in order to it he requires or honors, as condition precedent, 
faith in a pure fable, and bases his administration upon a false- 
hood. To escape this atonement in Christ must be real, and so 
the requirement of faith be vindicable on principles of truth 
and righteousness. 



40 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

How atonement becomes available to pardon is a point to be 
considered further on. That which we now affirm is that 
Christ is a necessary conditioning ground to the experience of 
pardon under the Christian dispensation : so necessary that it 
cannot be explained without him. I cannot here enter the 
polemic as to the person of Christ — the question of his divinity 
— a question having important relations to the philosophy of 
pardon. What I do affirm is that the experience of pardon on 
faith in Christ requires a de facto Christ, and the de facto Christ 
embraced in the faith — Christ an A toner, through whom the 
pardon is administered. 

It is Christie, since it cannot exist where Christ is not known, 
and since it cannot exist where Christ is known, except by faith 
in him, and since it invariably exists where faith is exercised in 
him. It is impossible to explain it without Christ. 

I have said that Christian experience is Christie. There 
may be Christ and an atonement and possibly no Christian ex- 
perience, but there can be no Christian experience without 
Christ and his atonement. The experience is proof positive 
of Christ and of atonement in Christ. 

My fourth point is : Christian experience requires as its 
conditioning ground the office and ivork of an omnipresent 
agent, the Holy Ghost. That this is a scriptural doctrine no 
one acquainted with the teaching of the sacred books will call 
in question. But this is not what I am set to ascertain and 
defend. My work is to show that the experience demands it. 

What is the particular experience to be accounted for which 
requires the action of any other personal agent in the soul than 
the soul itself ? The phenomena to be accounted for are : Sense 
of guilt, contrition of heart, the commitment of the soul to 
God, consciousness of pardon, the radical revolution of the soul 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 41 

in its affections, and entire volitional life, and a consciousness 
of the divine favor. These comprise the elements of the 
experience. 

To account for these experiences, we must attribute them to 
the soul itself as product of its own action pure and simple ; or 
we must find them as product of some other agent inworking 
them by its sole efficiency ; or we must find them as product of 
the coaction of the soul with another agent operating with it 
and in it. 

Sin is an act, or both an act and state, of the soul. Con- 
sciousness of the act or state of sin might conceivably account 
for the deep conviction of guilt without supposing any other 
coacting agent. But I am safe in affirming that it accords 
with the experience that the soul is not alone in the experi- 
ence. In conviction there is the consciousness of another with 
the soul. We think there can be no mistake about this. That 
consciousness must be explained. Repentance is also an act 
and state of the soul. It is conceivable that the soul is suffi- 
cient alone to account for it; but here again we think there 
can be no mistake that there is the consciousness of a super- 
natural presence with the soul in its struggles for pardon. Men 
are not alone either in their conviction of sin or their repent- 
ance, or in their final act of faith. There is throughout the con- 
scious coaction of another with the soul — helping, encouraging, 
inspiring. No one who has passed through the experience will 
doubt this. 

In the yet deeper experience of forgiveness the conscious- 
ness is of a witnessing to that fact by the pardoner. Of this 
there is concurrent testimony, not by all who give good evi- 
dence of Christian character, but by a large proportion of such. 
This consciousness is to be accounted for. The natural explan- 
ation is that the pardoner attests his own act. Allowing that 



42 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

a de facto pardon has taken place, it is inconceivable that the 
pardoner should not witness to it — that he should leave the soul 
to the hazard of mere inference. As a fact he is present, for 
he is the Omnipresent. 

But, if now we pass to the still deeper experience of the new 
life which springs in the soul, this must be accounted for. 
However there may be obscurity as to the fact of the direct 
witnessing of God to the forgiveness act, there is no uncer- 
tainty as to the springing of a new life in the forgiven soul. 
There is no fact of consciousness more explicit than this. The 
revolution is complete and radical. The soul knows it as it 
knows itself. The affections change their objects. What was 
loved is now hated ; what was hated is now loved. The 
motives which were dominant are displaced, and new motives 
emerge. The masters once regnant are driven out and. a new 
king is enthroned. The whole current of the life is changed, 
and this often in a moment. The will, once rebellious, is now 
loyal. " Old things have passed away, all things have become 
new" — the man is born again. 

These facts, for they are facts, demand an adequate explana- 
tion. If the facts referred to mere externalities — mere change 
of conduct or the adoption of new principles, new governing 
ideas, there might be no need to go beyond the soul itself for 
the explanation. However difficult that task, a strong will, 
sustained by a clear conviction, might be adequate to it. It has 
oftenoccurred with no other cause than self-determination. But 
that is not the case we have here to be accounted for. The 
case we offer is totally different. It is the case of a soul sub- 
jectively changed — a soul revolutionized. To this, we affirm, 
the soul itself has no power. The will has no power over 
either the affections or motives. It can go adverse to them, 
but it cannot change them. The soul cannot righteous (Bush- 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 43 

nell) itself. The sources of this change must be from above or 
from without. The soul must be a co-factor in the change ; it 
cannot take place without it, but it must have the concurrence 
and co-working of a power superior to itself. To eifect this 
great change, like passing from death unto life — in the fact, a 
change from death unto life — it requires that its guilt should 
be purged by forgiveness ; a guilty soul cannot be a righteous 
soul, and it requires that it should be in the fellowship of the 
divine life — that the fountain should be opened in it. This 
great change demands God with and in the soul both as for- 
giving and renewing. 

The soul has no power to revolutionize itself. It has power 
to determine its volitional activity within certain limits. It 
can determine to break off from sin, but it cannot purge itself 
of sin. It can determine to seek forgiveness, but it cannot 
forgive itself. It can, with divine help, commit itself to God, 
and, in a word, do all that is required of it in order to its 
salvation, but it has no power to save itself. God only 
can save ; God only can put his life into the soul ; God only can 
revolutionize the affections and transform the soul from 
the love of sin to the love of holiness. This act of new 
creation is not required of the soul itself simply because it is 
out of its power. God requires of it that it shall furnish the 
conditions within its power, on which he can effect the great 
change in it from spiritual death to spiritual life. 

If the facts of Christian experience are conditioned upon 
certain preconceptions, or more yet upon certain ground facts, 
in such manner that the phenomena cannot be explained or 
their existence rationally conceived without the reality of the 
conditioning facts, then the phenomena become demonstration 
of the reality of the conditioning grounds, just as any phenom- 
ena point to the reality of that which gives rise to them or of 



44 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

which they are phenomena. Thought, self-consciousness, rational 
volition, demand a personal subject ; and where the phenomena 
are found mind must exist as conditioning ground or cause. 
Form, color, gravity demand matter and cannot be explained 
without it. The phenomena, wherever found, proclaim the 
conditioning ground. In like manner, the consciousness of 
sin, which is but another name for the consciousness — that is, 
the knowledge — of the transgression of law, demands the exist- 
ence of a law that is transgressed. The phenomena of con- 
sciousness demonstrate the existence of the law.. If the con- 
sciousness is that the law is imposed and binding, and not a 
self-created imagination, the phenomena point to and demon- 
strate an objective source — the law demonstrates a lawgiver 
just as certainly as guilt demonstrates a law-breaker. So, fur- 
ther, if the breaking of the law involves guilt — that is, liability 
to punishment and personal demerit — the guilt incurred by the 
violation of law demonstrates the freedom of the violator, since 
guilt cannot attach to any necessitated act. Thus the fact of 
human sin, attended with the phenomenon of conscious guilt, 
demonstrates the existence of God as lawgiver, the personality 
and responsibility of man as a free personal being, and the 
entire substance of an ethical system. 

If, further, among the phenomena of Christian experience 
there emerges the consciousness of pardon this phenomenon 
proclaims a pardoning power in the administration of the moral 
system who has authority to suspend or restrain the penalties 
affixed to violations of law. If the pardon is consciously 
obtained through or at the end of repentance and faith as con- 
ditioning ground, and if the faith required and exercised is 
faith in Jesus Christ as an Atoner and Saviour in some way and 
for some cause, then the pardon, consciously experienced, can 
only be explained by the reality of Christ and his redeeming 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 45 

act. It arises solely on this ground. The experience is moral 
demonstration of the reality of the conditioning cause of the 
phenomena of pardon and forgiveness. If pardon is attended 
with a life implanted or a conscious renovation or regeneration 
of the soul receiving the pardon, the accompanying regenera- 
tion demands the regenerating agent just as much as any 
effect demands its appropriate cause. All effects are signs — 
phenomena of causes. 

I name as final conditioning fact to Christian experience the 
truth and knowledge of revelation. There is, and can be, no 
Christian experience outside of the knowledge of the Bible and 
the knowledge communicated in the Bible. This I affirm is a fact. 
The fact shows that the Bible is a necessary conditioning ground 
to the experience. 

Upon the announcement of this postulate the question imme- 
diately springs in your minds, What of the heathen, and what 
of infants, and what of the multitude of souls who cannot be 
said to have any proper knowledge of any spiritual truth ? To 
this question I answer, it is certain that neither a heathen 
who has never heard of Christ, nor an infant who as yet 
knows nothing, nor an immature or imbecile intellect that 
has no ethical possibilities, can be a Christian or have all the 
elements of Christian experience. They all lack the necessary 
conditions of Christian experience, which, in sum, is the knowl- 
edge of God as he has revealed himself to men in his 
holy word and in Jesus Christ, his Son. That is a fact which 
cannot be disputed. 

My thesis does not require me to deal further with the ques- 
tion, but simply to point out the grounds of Christian experi- 
ence and furnish a rational explanation of it. I might pass on 
without giving further attention to the side question which 



46 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

springs in your minds, but you would not be satisfied with 
that, I am sure. 

What of the heathen ? what of infants ? what of imbeciles ? 
I have said they cannot be Christians. Does any body doubt 
it? But must they then be lost? Why should they be lost? 
For not being what it is impossible they should be, and that 
by no fault of their own ? Did God ever require an impossi- 
bility ? Who will dare to say so ? Did he ever condemn a soul 
for not being or not doing what it was forever impossible, with- 
out fault of its own, it should be or do ? Who dares to say it \ 
There is a great temptation to branch off into a theological dis- 
cussion, but I must demonstrate my theory of the will by re- 
sisting the temptation. The subject is fully discussed in Studies 
in Theology. 

I think it must appear to all, to say the least, a very re- 
markable fact that the phenomena which emerge in Christian 
experience demand precisely those conditioning grounds which 
have been cited, and which are laid down in the Scriptures and 
cannot be explained without them. When a theory is pro- 
pounded on a given subject, the scientific norm for determin- 
ing the truth of the theory is that the theory accounts for all the 
facts. When it does this, and the facts cannot be accounted for 
in any other way, the theory itself is considered as rationally 
established. This is precisely the case we have here. The 
facts to be accounted for are of the class of facts best known — 
the facts of consciousness — facts of experience. The specific 
facts are, a human soul conscious of guilt, a human soul con- 
scious of repentance, a human soul conscious of pardon, a human 
soul conscious of a radical change in its loves, aspirations, motives, 
emotions, purposes, all its subjective ethical feelings and perma- 
nent states ; as to all these a new creature. The conditioning 
grounds alleged as explanatory of the facts or phenomena are the 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 47 

soul, a free responsible being, a law broken, a sovereign Lawgiver, 
a Redeemer, through whom pardon is extended, a renewing Holy 
Spirit by whom the soul is regenerated. These conditioning 
grounds adequately account for the phenomena, and there is no 
other possible way of accounting for them ; and so the phenom- 
ena point to and demonstrate the reality of the conditioning 
grounds. 

It is in noticeable harmony with this that those who deny 
any one of these fundamenta to Christian experience, say the 
personality of the human soul, or the personality of God, or the 
historical verity of Jesus Christ and his redemptive work, or 
the personality and office of the Holy Spirit, one or all, are sure 
also to deny the reality of Christian experience and resolve the 
whole series of phenomena intu sheer delusion or absolute hy- 
pocrisy ; and, contrariwise, those who make small account of 
Christian experience are certain to be skeptical on one or all of 
these fundamenta. The two interests are so inseparably inter- 
blended that one invariably and by logical necessity carries the 
other. The essence of Christianity requires both and perishes 
in the absence of either. 

The statement here made does not render it necessary to af- 
firm that among sects which theoretically deny some of these 
fundamenta, say, the redemptive work of Christ, or the proper 
Godhood of Christ, or the office and work of the Holy Spirit 
as a distinct personality, or the implied doctrine of the Trinity, 
there are no Christians. Such an affirmation would be unchar- 
itable and without support of evidence. Without doubt there 
is a spiritual instinct, a faith of the heart, that many times goes 
deeper than a creed, and not unfrequently adverse to it. It is 
not for us either to judge or dogmatically affirm as to what may 
be the possibilities of grace under the embarrassments of a de- 
fective creed ; nor, further, is it necessary to deny that an ex- 



48 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

perience of saving grace equivalent to a Christian experience as 
ground of peace and ultimate solvation may be attained even by 
a heathen soul who never heard of Christ or the Holy Ghost. 

"What we do affirm is that the fundamenta named are indis- 
pensable conditions of Christian experience and of all saving 
experience, whether they are recognized or not. That the clear 
apprehension of them is important to a clear experience cannot 
be reasonably doubted. That intellectual confusion with regard 
to any one of them tends to obscure all spiritual consciousness of 
grace we are compelled to believe ; but that a de facto redemp- 
tion may be made available by the Holy Spirit, whose office and 
even whose existence is dogmatically denied, grace triumphing 
over defects of intellectual apprehension, we also do not find it 
possible to doubt. Hindered by mental obscuration, the soul 
may, and probably, I think I may say certainly, often does, find 
its way to the all-loving Saviour imperfectly conceived of. 

We hold as axiomatic that any sincere and earnest soul, under 
any dispensation or in any possible outward darkness, honestly 
and according to its best light seeking God, will find its way to 
him, and by means of a redemption wrought by Christ, even if 
it have no knowledge of it or him, will, by the ever-present 
Holy Spirit, come to salvation; but though a soul so circum- 
stanced may be saved through Christ, it cannot, by reason of its 
circumstances, have a Christian experience, but only the essen- 
tial equivalent of it. No other view can be held without 
consifminc; to inevitable destruction the entire heathen world, 
which in all the ages past and at present comprises almost the 
entire mass of mankind. Of the exact processes of the Holy 
Spirit in regenerating the heathen, and also in regenerating in- 
fants, nothing is revealed and nothing can be known. To doubt 
that there is a process is to impeach the administration of Jeho- 
vah with diabolical cruelty and injustice. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 49 

LECTURE 3. 
ANTECEDENT HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES WHICH COLOR EXPERIENCE. 

The universe is a free product of God. To say that he had 
a purpose in its creation is only to say that he is an intelligent 
being and acts as such. To say that that purpose was the 
highest possible is only to say that he is the infinitely wise and 
good. That purpose must have had respect both to himself 
and to the universe to be. For himself it could have been no 
less a purpose than his own highest glory — that is, that the 
total outcome should most perfectly accord with his infinite 
perfections, should most perfectly manifest them, and should 
so serve his own highest blessedness of perfect self-content. It 
is impossible to conceive that he should have proposed any 
thing less than this for himself without ascribing to him moral 
defect of some kind. For the universe itself his purpose must 
have been that it should be so planned and made as to attain 
in the total outcome the highest good that could possibly be 
secured to created existence, for to aim at any thing less than 
this would imply moral defect — that is, defect in goodness. If 
infinite wisdom could have devised any thing better than that 
which was devised, and if infinite power could have caused it 
to be, infinite goodness must have purposed it, unless we sup- 
pose that infinite goodness could prefer and did prefer that 
which is not best to that which is best, which is a contradic- 
tion. The result is that the universe that is comprehending 
the total outcome is the best possible to its maker, most per- 
fectly manifesting his glory, and to the greatest possible degree 
securing his blessedness, and at the same time having secured 
to it the greatest good possible to infinite wisdom, power, and 
goodness. All of which is but saying that a person possessed 



50 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

of perfect wisdom, perfect power, and perfect goodness, and 
acting out these attributes, must choose and execute the best 
thing possible. 

Any system made to serve the ends of infinite wisdom and 
goodness must be regulated by law. Lawlessness is chaos. 
The universe exists, therefore, under law. The source of law is 
not only by right but of necessity the author of the system. 
The system includes its laws and does not exist apart from them. 

In the natural system the will of the author is law and con- 
formity is enforced by his power. In the ethical system his 
will is law enjoined upon the subject but conformity is not en- 
forced, but left at the option of the subject, with amenability. 

Under the natural sjstem the quality of the thing made is 
concrete — posited in its creation ; that is, it serves just the end 
it was created to serve. In the ethical system the subject is 
created with powers inherent, but his ethical quality is self- 
determined by the use he makes of his power. Voluntary, un- 
enforced conformity or disconformity to his law determines 
his quality. His quality is not concreated but is self-pro- 
duced. Under the ethical system there must be a period and 
opportunity during which the subject shall furnish the proof 
what his volitional course and disposition will be with respect 
to his law — that is, what manner of being he will determine 
himself to be. This period is called probation. There is no 
place for probation in the natural system ; it is a necessity in 
the ethical system. 

Under probation the subject determines his quality, and 
there is no other way in which it could be determined. It 
cannot be concreated ; it must be self-originated. It may be to 
infinite wisdom foreknown. 

When the quality of the subject has been finally self-de- 
termined by his volitional conformity or disconformity to the 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 51 

law enjoined upon him, it is a real quality of righteousness or 
unrighteousness, as the case may be, and will at the end of pro- 
bation be irreversible — that is, such that he will not reverse it. 
The quality thus self-superinduced must determine how the 
subject shall be disposed of under law. There is an immut- 
able ethical necessity that he should be disposed of accord- 
ing to his character of righteous or unrighteous. 

Man is a spirit, and as such he comes under the law of the 
spiritual world and not under the law of things. Christian 
experience is of the Spirit and is purely spiritual. It is to be 
interpreted wholly from this stand-point. 

Now, what is the law of the spiritual as contradistinguished 
from the law in the natural world ? In the natural world the 
reigning law is that of necessity — all effects are necessitated 
effects. One all-embracing and comprehensive power explains 
every thing. All events are forced and directed by one sover- 
eign will. It is pure monergism. Were this the only consti- 
tution the universe would be reduced to mere things driven by 
necessitating force. Under such a system it would be impos- 
sible to introduce or locate the idea of responsibility anywhere 
below the necessitating agent. Upon such a foundation it 
would be impossible for an ethical system to arise. Pure mo- 
nergism excludes ethics. Nature knows no ethics. Through- 
out all its realm the word ought finds no place, and that simply 
because of its reigning law. The law of the spiritual world is 
fundamentally different. Spirits are free, self-determining be- 
ings. They are not driven by necessity either from within or 
without. The sources of their action are subjective — that is, 
self-inhering. The constitution under which they exist is that 
of free personal powers. Any interpretation of them and their 
expression must recognize this fundamental law ; but though 
free powers they are not without laws for their government. 



52 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

As they are different in constitution from things, they being 
self -determining powers, and things being not powers at all, 
but mere concrete expressions of a power by which they exist, 
so they are different in governing laws, the laws of things be- 
ing simply the rules of action of the being w T ho constitutes 
them and drives them, and the laws of free spirits being rules 
of action enjoined upon them by their creator for their gov- 
ernment, but to the obedience of which they are free — that is, 
not necessitated — but are held responsible ; that is, are under 
obligation of duty and are answerable for delinquency. 

The spiritual world exists and is administered under this 
fundamental constitution over all realms where it is found for 
ever and ever. It is the fundamentum of an ethical system. 
Any experiences in the spiritual world are to be interpreted 
by it. 

Of the spiritual world oar knowledge is limited, but there is, 
and necessarily must be, one reigning constitution throughout. 
Under that constitution it is certain that every responsible 
spirit has to undergo some kind of a probation upon the out- 
come of which its ultimate destiny depends. There are and 
can be no untested responsible spirits in the universe. Proba- 
tion is a necessary inclusion of any ethical system administered 
over fallible beings. As it is a necessity to a moral being that 
he should be free to his law, so it is a necessity that it should 
be possible for him to break his law and come under its con- 
demnation. Probation simply means a period, long or short, 
during which there shall be a fair and adequate opportunity 
furnished to establish the fact whether a free being will per- 
manently respect the obligations of duty, and at the end of 
which, having had a fair trial, he shall be answerable for his 
conduct. The implications of a probation which shall termi- 
nate in a fixed ethical character, and ultimate ethical state of 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 53 

reward or penalty, are not simply that the trial shall have been 
beneficently fair, but that during the trial the subject shall have 
assumed an attitude to obligatory law which to it is of its own 
choice final. Until that stage is reached it is impossible that 
probation should terminate, under a beneficent system. 

The exact circumstances under which other spirits not of 
the human race have undergone their probation are unknown 
to us. There is room for great possible diversity. We will 
not enter the field of conjecture. 

What is probation f It will aid to the right understanding of 
the case if we give yet more specific attention to what is involved 
in the idea of probation. The term itself means to try or test ; a 
method of trying and testing. When applied to a person it means 
that he is subjected to tests to determine his ethical quality, that 
is, that he may furnish the proof of what manner of person he is, 
and will permanently be. But the object of probation is not 
simply to determine the quality of the person tested, but that, 
the quality being determined, a basis may be furnished for the 
proper disposition of the person tested. In the case of man, or 
any spirit, the end of the testing or probation is that he may 
furnish the proof of his ethical quality, and so be assigned his 
permanent proper place under ethical law. 

Now there are several implications in this which need to be 
noted and which must determine the righteousness of the 
proceeding. 

I note then, first, in order to an ethical probation the ethical 
idea must exist in the probationer ; that is, there must be the idea 
of right and wrong, and there must be felt obligation to the 
right. In a universe where these correlate ideas did not exist 
there could be no ethical character, and so no ethical tests. 



54 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

I note, second, the subject must be put under law which en- 
joins the right, and creates in the subject the feeling of obliga- 
tion to it, which necessitates that the subject should know the 
law, and should feel not only obliged to it but obliged by it, 
because it enjoins what the subject believes to be right. The 
ethical quality of the act of obedience demands not only that the 
law should be kept, but that it should be kept because the sub- 
ject believes that it ought to be kept. It is this sense of ought- 
ness which puts ethical quality in the act of obedience, not 
simple obedience itself. 

I note, third, that in order to ethical probation the subject 
must not only know his law and feel under obligation to obey if, 
but he must be fully able to obey it, and at the same time must 
have power to disobey it. For if he have no power to obey it 
it is impossible that he should be under obligation to obey it, 
and it is also impossible that failure to obey should be any test 
of his ethical quality ; and, contrariwise, if he have no power 
to disobey it obedience is no ethical test. It follows that the 
subject, while obliged by the requirement of the law, cannot be 
necessitated by internal or external force, lie must feel the 
obligation of duty or oughtness, but must be free from con- 
straint. It is this which lifts him into ethical quality, and dis- 
tinguishes him from mere things. 

I note, fourth, that not only must the subject be free, so that 
the act may be his own proper personal act and so determine 
his ethical quality, but it must, in order to be a real test, be 
an act not simply to which he is free with alternative power 
to the opposite, but it must be an act in the presence of such 
influences to the opposite as furnish the proof that his adher- 
ence to the right is such that under no possible exigencies 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 56 

of his existence it will ever be reversed. The test is a final 
test, and furnishes to infinite wisdom the conditions of a final 
disposition of the case, so that the probation ends and destiny 
is reached. 

It thus appears that under any ethical system the evil of dis- 
conformity to its law must be possible to the subject, and the 
evil of punishment be a necessity when such disconformity 
exists by final choice. 

Whether a soul can be saved without probation, that is, for- 
ever fixed in happiness without having passed through a proba- 
tion, is a point about which it is impossible to know, but it is 
absolutely certain that no soul can be condemned or consigned 
to inevitable curse without an equitable probation. If heaven 
may be given as a free gift without conditions, and if one may 
be perpetually holy without ever having passed through the haz- 
ards of the opportunity and temptation to choose evil, it is ab- 
solutely an impossible idea, on ethical grounds, that any one 
should be consigned to hell without opportunity of an opposite 
fate, and impossible also that he should enjoy heaven without a 
choice of holiness. How God saves infants and imbeciles is not 
revealed, but that it is impossible they should be lost is one 
of the clearest ethical certainties ; and that it is impossible they 
should be saved without a free adherence to righteousness is 
equally certain — holiness is self-determined and vice versa, and 
holiness constitutes heaven. The case of the heathen is that 
they are amenable to the law under which they exist, and under 
it serve their probation. 

To man there is but one probation, and thatit is in time and 
while he is in the body we believe on scriptural grounds, and on 
no other. W e do not therefore undertake to give a philosophy of 



56 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

it. We do see that a perfectly equitable probation in which 
there is an adequate and fair opportunity to a happy issue in 
every case is an ethical necessity. The method and time-limit 
of probation, revealed or not, is one which infinite wisdom and 
goodness will devise, and which will approve itself to the uni- 
verse as both just and generous. ~No human soul, infantile, im- 
becile, or heathen, exists or will be disposed of for eternity apart 
from atonement in Christ, and no soul can fail of the benefits 
of the atonement unto eternal salvation without personal incor- 
rigible sin against the light vouchsafed. These are points 
determined by immutable ethical principles. 

The circumstances under which a human soul passes its proba- 
tion are important to be noted, as they furnish an explanation 
of its peculiar experiences. There can be no philosophy of 
Christian experience without taking account of them. The 
statement will have to be somewhat extended, but will be re- 
duced to as brief limits as possible. 

The first point we note as having bearing is this, human 
souls have a racial origin — they, while having an individual- 
ized identity, which separates each soul from every other soul 
so as to make it a distinct being, do not severally exist alone 
and apart, but come into existence in a race order and derive 
something affecting their state from heredity. We cannot here 
introduce the polemic on traducianism and creationism. 

The second point we note is, every human soul propagated in 
fact enters upon its existence and upon its probation in an abnor- 
mal condition, that is, in inherent disconformity with its law — a 
state propagated in it. This fact tinges its whole experience as 
a soul, and gives rise to all the peculiar phenomena of Christian 
experience. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 57 

We might pass on without further consideration of this point, 
but the result would be unsatisfactory. The question how 
abncrmalcy came to be a fact becomes important as affecting 
points which will emerge further on, and needs a brief treatment. 

To answer this question we need to push our researches 
further back, into earlier incidents of our race history. 

The next point I note, therefore, is, that the head of our 
race was a created soul who was placed on his probation in a 
normal state. I do not enter upon the polemic here as to the 
measure of either his intellectual or moral or spiritual endow- 
ments. The only point I make is he had nothing intrinsic, 
and there was nothing extrinsic in disharmony with his law. 
The law under which he was placed was suited to his capacity, 
and there was nothing abnormal in him or in his environments 
to hinder or embarrass a fair probation ; there was every thing 
in both respects to aid to a desirable outcome. 

The next point I note is this, to which I attach the greatest 
possible emphasis ; his probation was for himself alone. It seems 
strange that it should be necessary to emphasize this point, since 
it is in contradiction of fundamental ethics that it should have 
been otherwise. The only excuse for the emphasis is that a 
vicious theologizing, running through the centuries, has assidu- 
ously taught that he served a probation for his unborn posterity. 

The next point I note is, that this first created soul failed 
in his probation ; that is, he broke the law given him, and never 
given to any one of his posterity, and became liable to its penalty, 
which was declared to be death. The occasion of the failure 
was temptation. Tha sources of the temptation were external 
and internal. He was tempted by a malign spirit. He was also 



58 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

prompted by his own constitution. There was food for temp- 
tation stored in him. The law suggested resistance, because it 
forbade something the soul desired. It is so in every moral act. 
It is important to note the difference between temptation and 
sin, and also the difference between temptableness and sinful- 
ness. Temptation is not sin. There can be no sin without 
temptation ; and also there can be no probation and no ethical 
subject without temptation or temptableness. Temptation is felt 
solicitation to sin, with a conscious ability to comply with the 
solicitation and an attraction to it. Sin is the yielding of the 
will to the solicitation under the sense of obligation to the 
opposite, and with power to the opposite. The solicitation to 
sin does not mar the moral integrity of the tempted soul, nor 
does the feeling of its attraction. It taxes its will and puts it 
under stress. When the temptation is resisted it strengthens 
the will and tends to establish the soul in righteousness. By a 
series of resistances of solicitation to sin solicitation loses its 
power, and there comes a time when the influence of temptation 
diminishes to zero, and the w T ill strengthened by exercise, or 
the soul, will forever stand in the perfect and immovable 
integrity of righteousness. When that point is reached pro- 
bation has answered its end and destiny is determined — the 
soul is forever sphered in holiness and the perfect rest and 
peace of eternal life. So, contrariwise, wdien the will yields 
itself to the solicitation of sin it sins. It is the yielding that is 
the sin. With the yielding temptation acquires additional 
power, and the power to resist is weakened. Ultimately the 
power to resist is reduced to zero, and the influence of evil is 
raised to complete dominance. Character is fixed in irreversible 
sin, that is, the soul has freely determined itself to sin by a free 
choice which under no circumstances in its future history it will 
reverse. Probation ends and destiny begins — the soul is lost. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 59 

It may be of advantage to note the avenue of temptation to 
the unf alien Adam. Doubtless the sources of temptation are 
varied, as the environing circumstances of individual spirits 
vary. The temptations by which angels lost their first state 
are not revealed, and there is nothing in common between their 
plane and ours by which we can interpret them. 

The case of Adam is stated and it is perfectly intelligible to 
us. His temptation arose through the sensuous and intellectual 
nature he possessed. His law — a divine statute, not a constitu- 
tional law — forbade him to partake of a certain fruit. The law 
became the occasion of temptation. He dosired that which was 
forbidden for two reasons ; it appealed to his sensuous nature, 
it appealed also to his intellectual nature. It attracted him 
because it looked as if it would be pleasant to taste. It attracted 
him because it would broaden his knowledge. He was so made 
that these two facts could not fail to create desire. The desire 
became source of temptation. ^Tote, there was no sin in the 
desire. That was natural, and with his constitution was inevi- 
table. It was that fact that made the law a test. If the for- 
bidden object had not been adapted to awaken desire there 
w^ould have been no probation or no test in the case. His sin 
commenced not with desire, but with the going over of the will 
to the choice of the forbidden thing. All sin has its seat in the 
will. The appetites and passions and intellectual aspirations 
are not sins. They belong to the original furnishings of the 
soul. Sin is volitional indulgence in contravention of law. 
So long as the desires are kept within bounds of law they are 
proper and right, serve a constitutional function, and accord 
with the will of God. They are limited by law. When the 
will which is appointed to govern them and keep them within 
law, turns traitor to its trust sin is the result. 

Let us try to get as nearly as possible at the exact truth 



60 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

aimed at by all these and similar statements. To do this, we 
begin with the statement that man is a being who has relations 
to a sensuous and supersensuous world. He was made for final 
existence in the supersensuous realm. That was to bo his 
home, and in its employments lie was to find his perfected bliss. 
His faculties were to be awake and opened to its realities, and 
his supreme affections to be set on it. The thought of it was 
to be the supreme power molding his life and pursuits. He 
was to live in expectancy of it and under its abiding influence. 
Supreme love to God and absolute subjection of himself to 
God was to be the governing norm of his life. But he was 
also placed in an animal body, which related him temporarily 
to a sensuous world which appealed to him in various ways, 
and had power with him in various inferior ministries of tem- 
poral good. He was to use it, but in subjecti onto higher, super- 
sensuous realities. The discernment and maintenance of this 
law of subordination of the sensuous to the supersensuous 
was to constitute his perfection — it was his supreme law. The 
introduction of sin reversed this law — put the animal supreme 
and the spirit in subjection ;put him under the dominion of the 
carnal mind and sensuous lusts, turned all his loves and desires 
toward the earth, made him dead to the supersensuous. 

This is, and has been since the original severance of man 
from his Maker by disobedience, the estate of man by nature ; 
that is, by birth. The animal essentially dominates him — he is 
by degeneracy " of the earth, earthy" — : he delights in an dlives for 
sensual pleasure. His sins all emanate from this source. He is 
not spiritually minded. Spiritual realities are undiscerned and 
unloved. The original law of his being is utterly broken. 
This is the fall of man — his depravity, his native sinfulness 
called. He is estranged from God and is immersed in fleshly 
lusts and sensualities — under the dominion of sensuous things. 



rUILO SOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 61 

It is a fact that the first attraction which reaches the soul on 
its entrance upon life is sensuous. As soon as it begins to live 
a conscious life or becomes able to feel an attraction it is drawn 
by and to the world and the flesh. As yet it has no idea of 
the supersensuous or spiritual. It has no proper rational life 
even. It is in an unethical state ; that is, the ideas of right and 
wrong and obligation on the ethical ground of oughtness do 
not exist in it. Long before it reaches these ideas — the idea 
even that there are any spiritual realities or any moral laws — it 
has already become immersed in sensuosity ; that is, its wdiolc 
thought and offection and volitionating determine toward the 
earth. It is completely earth-bound. There is nothing else 
in the scope of its vision. It discovers in the world life in 
which it is bound things which powerfully attract it. There 
is no counter-attraction, for the supersensuous is wholly un- 
known. The earth spirit, which theologically takes the name 
of depravity, has complete sway in it. This is an important 
and indisputable fact. 

But, meantime, in its deepest nature it is spiritual, and is 
made for another kind of life. The life it at present, that is, 
during the reign of sensuosity, lives is not altogether an alien 
life ; it pertains to its constitution, but it is not its truest and 
best life ; not the life that will ultimately develop in it, not the 
life it must permanently live. Under the film of sensuosity 
which now invests it there lies, without sign of life, a conscious- 
ness yet to be awakened toward an as yet unknown supersensu- 
ous world whose reality and power it will inevitably come to 
feel. In the core of its deepest, truest self is an ethic, a moral 
norm — a religion. When this hidden life shall begin to de- 
velop itself and its impulses shall begin to be felt, a new ex- 
perience will develop in the soul, which will first appear as a 
schism, a discord, a warfare, as the pull of two conflicting 



62 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

attractions, one toward the objects which have hitherto swayed 
it, in which it has lived and found delight, and which have 
become masterful to it ; another attraction toward objects and 
interest now for the first dimly discovered to it, but which press 
upon it and urge it as of supreme importance : the attractions 
of the supersensuous world ; the sense of God ; the pressure 
of a feeling of obligation toward him ; the yearnings after 
something not given in sense ; the indistinct outline of realities 
lying beyond time and away from the earth ; voices calling 
to it, pleading with it, urging it — voices which it cannot hush. 
The ethical life begins. 

It is in this innermost nature of the soul where Christian ex- 
periences are born. These are the first buddings, the dawning 
of the God consciousness, the germinations of the spiritual life. 
The antecedent life of sensualism inherited, while tending to 
sin and enslaving the soul up to the time when a higher con- 
sciousness is awakened, has no ethical character, and it never 
could acquire ethical character if the subject did not come to 
a state of knowledge in which he felt the obligation to bring it 
under law\ There is no sin in an impulse of nature, no differ- 
ence what it is, until it comes into relations with will and law. 

However it became a fact, it is a fact that the human soul 
finds itself in the earliest stages of its etcical consciousness 
dead to spiritual realities. It is quite impossible to determine 
at what stage of life the soul comes to ethical consciousness. 
It is certainly not in early infancy. It doubtless varies in dif- 
ferent cases : environments are influential and determining 
causes. With some ethical consciousness is awakened much 
earlier than with others. But, be it sooner or later, whenever 
the soul attains fully to that state it finds itself assuming an 
attitude of resistance to law, alive to evil lusts and sensuality, 
and opposed to whatever would restrain its wrong-going — 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 63 

earthly, sensual, and devilish. Sin takes possession of it and 
makes it a willing slave. It is not wholly depraved, however ; 
along with its first ethical consciousness it finds itself encom- 
passed with redeeming influences. It discerns right and wrong. 
It becomes aware of something urging it to the right, for the 
divine Spirit meets its dawning consciousness. It is not wholly 
abandoned to evil. Its earthward and evil tendencies encounter 
opposition, but its inclination is to evil, and were it left wholly to 
itself, and environments without redeeming influences, it would 
immediately sink into loathsome sensuality and utter depravity: 
the impulses from within are all that way ; and that it is not utter- 
ly lost and dead to righteousness is because redeeming influence 
reaches it. If the depraved impulses are restrained it is by 
gracious agency from without. It is early susceptible to the 
saving and restraining influences which come to it from the 
Holy Spirit. It may be early saved, before it comes to the con- 
sciousness of the power of evil within it, before it has acquired 
a relish for evil, and especially before it has come under the 
dominion of habits of sin ; but in that case salvation must come 
from without. It cannot save itself. 

This is the state and character of every human soul when it 
opens into ethical consciousness. Its first tendencies are earth- 
ward and evil, and without exceptions the tendencies ultimate 
in the actual sin as well as sinfulness of the soul. In a eoul in 
this case Christianizing experiences take their rise. I do not 
doubt but that this statement will seem to put the soul at 
great disadvantage, and will seem to impeach God witli un- 
generous, if not unethical, treatment of it ; nevertheless, that 
the statement is correct, accords with the facts, I do not 
doubt. 

If we were compelled to accept the theological statement, 
long time persistently made, that the soul is rendered guilty 



64 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

by heredity, there would be some show of reason for the alle- 
gation that it takes its existence at great disadvantage, and 
would place the administration in an unvindicable light before 
the universe ; or if it could be shown that the mercy element 
introduced into the administration did not place the soul so 
marred on a fair footing for its personal probation, the same 
result would follow. 

But if redemptive influences reach it in its new needs which 
more than counterbalance its injuries, then its marring would 
not be to its disadvantage. If it gains more in Christ than it 
lost in Adam its chances are improved. 

The probation of an abnormal soul must, under a righteous 
administration, be planned in the recognition of that fact. 

It is customary to assume — and it is not peculiar to any theo- 
logical system, Arminianism and Calvinism in all their shades 
asserting it — that that Edenic probation, admitted to be per- 
fectly fair, was a probation in which the eternal destiny of the 
subject was involved: Calvinism being responsible for the 
position that the subject included all the unborn souls of the 
human race, a pseudo-Arminianism not unfrequently expressing 
itself in a way that involves the same unethical idea : and as the 
probation issued in failure it is as constantly assumed by Calvin- 
ism that by the failure the guilty subject, including all hu- 
manity, was brought under condemnation to eternal death ; 
Arminianisnl meanwhile, often by misstatement saving itself 
from the atrocious idea. 

On this unethical basis Calvinism builds its entire system, so 
replete with horror that it makes one stand aghast to read it. 
I dare not pursue the subject further. 

Before stating the true exposition of that ancient chapter of 
race history, I raise a question concerning that Adamic proba- 
tion which, so far as I know, has not appeared in theological 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 65 

polemics upon that point. That question is this : Where does it 
appear in the Scriptures that the probation in which the Adam 
was placed was one w T hich involved even his own eternal des- 
tiny ? It is scripturally and historically certain that it did not, 
and we find ourselves compelled to affirm that there are ethical 
grounds why it could not. The revelation affirms that for that 
sin, and all other sins of men but that of a final irreversible 
self-determination to evil by any soul for itself, an anticipated 
remedy was already prepared before that first failure had oc- 
curred. The purpose of redemption antedated the fall. " The 
sacrificial lamb was in purpose slain from the foundation of the 
world." It was not an after-thought, an expedient to meet an 
unforeseen contingency. This is biblical, and it is also ethical. 
The outcome of that Edenic chapter of probation and failure 
was not that the penalty of the law was executed upon the trans- 
gressor, if so be the penalty was eternal death. If it was- 
eternal death it never was and never will be executed upon 
any soul of man. The sin of Eden did not send Adam to final 
perdition, and could not. That the penalty of eternal death 
was not executed could have been for no other reason than that 
iv. was not contentful to the divine nature that it should be — 
that is, the nature of God would not permit it. That he did 
not permit it is in proof that for some reason his nature would 
not permit it — could not on some immutable ethical grounds; 
for there could be no other reason. Let us search more nar- 
rowly into that chapter of probation and see if we cannot find 
an explanation that will shed light on the w T hole transaction. 
I am fully aware that I am attempting to tread a perilous edge, 
where great caution is necessary, and therefore ask critical at- 
tention to every point raised, that if error appears anywhere it 
may be pointed out. I think I am safe in saying that up to 
date no theological rendering of the Edenic case has been 



66 PHILOSOPHY OF CHEIST1 AN EXPERIENCE. 

perfectly satisfactory, while some which have most widely pre- 
vailed, and continue to be put forward, with great but faltering 
persistence, have irrecoverably lost the respect of mankind. In 
substance, I believe our Wesley an version of Arminianism has 
most nearly reached the solution, but with some marring, and 
with incidents of disharmony with itself, which more careful 
and critical statement may eliminate. 

In the examination I start with the statement that I accept 
without reservation the historical account of the case made by 
Moses. I believe it is a true and divinely revealed account of 
the Edenic or Adamic probation. The search is as to exactly 
what the account contains, in the light of fundamental ethics, 
and subsequent history, and revelations that have a bearing on 
the subject. 

The account given by Moses is the simplest possible. This 
is its great merit. There is nothing outre or mysterious about 
it. The circumstances are natural and intelligible. It has all the 
appearance of a plain unvarnished story. It commends itself 
as probable. There is nothing in human knowledge of an his- 
torical, rational, scientific, or ethical kind to throw doubt upon 
it. The deepest philosophy suggests no improvement of it. It 
claims to have been received from God. The subject-matter is 
such as to exclude the possibility of any other authorship on 
any other theory than that it is fiction of human invention. Of 
this there is no evidence and much disproof. 

The law was the simplest possible, but it served as a moral 
test — that is, the test whether the subject would obey law. 
That was what it was for. It perfectly answered its end. 
Would a more complex and difficult law have been better? 
Who will affirm it, considering the circumstances of the case % 

The law forbade that which something in the nature of the 
subject craved. This is important to be noted. Could it have 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 67 

been a moral test without that ? Could it have been less and 
answer the end of determining character ? 

The outcome was that the subject chose unrighteousness. 
Simple as the test was he did not endure it. I am willing to 
say, in order to give all possible strength to the case, that it 
was foreknown that he would fail. This fact must be taken 
into the account in order to the explanation of the whole case, 
and must give complexion to it. I cannot here enter into the 
polemic or foreknowledge further than to say that it had no 
influence whatever as causing the act of disobedience, but it 
was influential as affecting the administration with respect to 
the act of disobedience. The whole subject in all its bearings is 
fully discussed in the treatises already referred to. We have now 
reached the point in the history where objection springs. It is 
said the subject, considering his inexperience, never should 
have been placed in a situation of such imminent peril. The 
objection is purely instinctive. Has it been considered what 
the position means ? Can there be an ethical system without 
such peril ? What is righteous character but the free choice 
of right with the possible choice of wrong ? To assume that 
no subject should be placed in such condition of peril as to 
possibly make a wrong choice is simply to assert that a moral 
universe ought not to exist. That depends on. what the fore- 
known outcome will be. It is perfectly safe to affirm that its 
existence, caused by a holy and loving God, is stronger proof 
that it ought to exist than any evidence to the contrary from 
purely instinctive judgment of any finite creature. 

But it is said that the foreknowledge of failure in this case at 
least ought to have estopped the peril. That depends on two 
things ; namely, how this particular history stands related to 
the whole ethical system in all time and over all worlds, 
and what else was foreknown of the outcome of this trial. 



68 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

But it is said in any event the treatment of the subject is 
inexcusably severe. Infinite love ought to have interfered. 
Here, again, we have the cry of the she wolf — mere instinct 
without reason. 

Has the case been severely treated \ I am sure that justice 
never has been done to this question. Let us calmly loch at it 
in a changed form. How ought it to have been treated and 
how has it been treated ? Is there ground for the charge of 
severity ? I am sure that any thing like a fair examination 
will secure the verdict that the treatment has been the tender- 
est possible — the treatment of unsurpassed and unsurpassable 
love. 

"What are the facts ? Was the culprit dealt with liarshly % 
"Was he driven away in wrath to irrecoverable doom ? Was he 
consigned to remediless sin and everlasting torments? Were 
his unborn descendants left to welter in the horrors of inevita- 
ble sin and shame as the result of his inexcusable deed % Where 
is it said ? Shall we forever continue to asperse God and per- 
vert the plainest statements of history at the dictation of a 
false human creed on the one hand, or the mere ebullitions of 
unreasoning instinct on the other ? Is there to be no limit to 
the blasphemy against infinite love ? 

What says the history ? Does it not faithfully record that, 
foreseeing the calamity, infinite love had already provided a 
remedy ? Does it not show that the probation, instead of being 
ended and the case finally adjudicated, was only begun ? the 
first chapter merely of continuous history ? Would it not be 
wiser to be at the pains to read the history through \ 

The story is a pathetic one. It reveals to us a loving father 
dealing with an erring and wayward child — the more you put 
in the sin of the child the greater the tenderness of compassion 
on the part of the father. A grievous wrong had been com- 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 69 

irrittecl — a tragedy of evil initiated — the peace of the universe 
disturbed, not by the eating of an apple, as fools flippantly 
assert, but by an act of disobedience which involved the choice 
of evil instead of good ; which changed the character of the 
transgressing child ; which changed his relations to law ; which 
immutable ethics demanded should be recognized in the after- 
treatment of the transgressor ; which no power could obliter- 
ate ; which to remedy would cost an infinite price of suffering 
and sorrow. We stand at the open door of the greatest tragedy 
of all time. The guilty culprit, who, willingly or not, had 
opened the " Pandora's box " and let loose the fiends of evil to 
raven and destroy, stands before whom ? An inexorable, an unre- 
lenting judge ? A frowning, lowering, omnipotent vengeance ? 
No, not that ; but before a holy and compassionate father, com- 
pelled to deal with his offending child but moved with pity and 
intent on remedy rather than punishment ; not moved more by 
justice than by love — more by justice tempered by love. Com- 
passion intones the entire narrative. lie reproves but he com- 
forts. Could he have done less ? At what infinite cost he un- 
dertakes to remedy the breach ! 

What was the result? The sin had been committed; it 
could not be recalled. Neither the sinning child nor sinned- 
against parent had power to obliterate it. It must be dealt 
w T ith as sin. This immutable ethics demanded. 

The culprit was marred in character, the evil of sin had gone 
into his soul ; but it was by his own choice. He was turned 
out of Paradise. It was prepared for the sinless. lie had 
sinned. Was a wrong done him in sending him away? To 
assume it is to assume that the sinning and the sinful should 
have no different treatment — again the cry of the she wolf ; in- 
stinct against reason. 

I ask critical attention to the further statement I now make. 



70 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

Though turned out of Paradise, with a character marred and 
with a nature perverted by his sin, the culprit was not for- 
saken but was permitted to live under a prolonged probation— 
the continued probation mercifully adapted to his altered cir- 
cumstances. 

It was not now a probation of an innocent person to test 
whether under temptation he would choose evil instead of 
good. That test had been already passed and he had deter- 
mined himself to evil. 

It was not a probation to test whether, now that he had be- 
come guilty, he would reconsider and restore himself to right- 
eousness. That was impossible. Guilt once incurred cannot 
purge itself. The sinner cannot annihilate the fact of his sin 
nor remove its guilt by any atonement he can offer or repara- 
tion he can make. 

It was not a probation under which, by a sovereign act, the 
culprit was forgiven or placed under a less rigorous law. The 
law could not be relaxed ; it can require nothing less than 
righteousness and absolute obedience. Nor can there be an 
act of sovereign forgiveness f or its violation. Under continued 
probation the law is neither abolished nor modified, and under 
it there is no sovereign forgiveness. 

It was not a probation under which incurred guilt was im- 
puted to another and the righteousness of another imputed to 
the culprit. Though a probation under unrelaxed law it was 
not a probation under law alone, in which failure in a single 
case, or even many grievous and continuous failures, closed the 
test and consigned the culprit to the doom of final and irre- 
trievable ruin. I call special attention to this statement. 

The probation was that of a guilty sinner, made such by his 
own free choice of evil under the most favorable opportunity 
and highest motives to the choice of good ; of a sinner who by 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 71 

his sin had not only incurred guilt but had thereby introduced 
into his nature a perverting habit and tendency to evil which 
bound him to perpetual sinning so far as any power himself 
possessed. A soul touched with the virus of sin cannot cure 
itself. There is in it no power of self-redemption. This it is 
that makes the deepest evil of sin. 

It is obvious that probation to such a soul, were there noth- 
ing more to be said, would be meaningless. Where there is 
only one possible outcome, what the end will be is determined 
before the trial. 

"We add, therefore, it was the probation of a guilty and sin- 
ful soul under the provisions of an atonement originated not 
by itself but by the infinite love against which it had sinned ; 
an atonement which was to be wrought out at a great price of 
suffering voluntarily endured on its behalf ; an atonement un- 
der which its sin, and any and all sins it might commit, might 
be forgiven, and its blighted and perverted nature be restored 
to normalcy, on one condition : that it should yield to the 
mighty persuasions of love under helpful influences of a regen- 
erating power ever at hand, which enable it to renounce its 
sin and sue for pardon. 

I cannot here enter at .all into the polemic of that atonement 
in any aspect of it as to its extent or the why of its efficacy, 
but rest the statement here, with the assertion of the fact that 
there was such an atonement made for the sinning Adam and 
for all of his posterity covering their sin, and that con- 
tinued probation is under its provisions. 

Does this look like severity \ Does it reveal to us a charac- 
ter inexorable and unrelenting — an unforgiving vengeance as 
seated on the throne of the universe ? Is it hard treatment to 
ask a sinner to renounce his sins and sue for pardon ? Is it 
hard treatment to provide an atonement for him at the greatest 



72 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

possible cost when he was too poor and helpless to provide one 
for himself ? Is it hard treatment to bear with him throngh 
years of impenitence and insolent wickedness, persuading and 
entreating him not to destroy himself ? Is it hard treatment 
to enlist all possible influences to save him — to move heaven 
and earth on his behalf ? Is it hard treatment if, after all pos- 
sible efforts to save him he is still found to be impenitent, and 
has made for himself the irreversible choice of evil, to send 
him away to his own place ? Where else should he be sent ? 
What other disposition could be made of him ? If when the 
probation ends it is because character has assumed an un- 
changeable type by the irreversible choice of evil, and if at 
the end destiny is determined by fixed and incorrigible im- 
penitence self-elected, under all the circumstances investing the 
trial who but a devil dare accuse the ever blessed God with 
having been unmerciful ? "Who can name any thing that 
should have been done that has not been done ? 

In passing away from the chapter of initial probation in 
Eden I affirm that neither Adam nor any one of his posterity 
ever was damned to eternal and irretrievable death for the sin 
which he then committed. 

I further affirm that no such result followed the act, because 
the nature of God was such that he could not permit it — such 
that he never proposed any thing of the kind — and not because 
of any change of mind arising from unexpected exigencies. 

I affirm yet further that the act of Eden did change the rela- 
tions between God and the sinning Adam, and did radically 
affect the nature of Adam, introducing into his soul a tendency 
to sin which he, left to himself, had no power to reverse. 

I affirm that this new but foreseen condition of things was 
the basis of an atonement scheme antedating the sin, by which 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 73 

probation was continued and under which eternal destiny is 
administered. 

I affirm that Adam's sin in the breach of the Eden law, and 
all other sins that he ever committed, were his own sins, and 
nobody else's, and that there never was or could be a sharer in 
his guilt ; and, therefore, that the atonement provided was not 
an atonement for the guilt of any one of his posterity with 
respect to that act, since they were not, and could not be, guilty 
concerning it. 

I affirm still yet further that such are the relations of Adam 
and his posterity that, by heredity and natural descent, the 
marring which sin brought into his nature is transmitted to his 
posterity, and that all born of him receive from him a fatal bias 
to sin such that not one of his line has ever escaped it ; and 
such that, but for the restoring agencies which emanate from 
the atonement under which they take their existence, they 
would be involved in utter ruin ; and, therefore, such as would 
have prevented their existence had no provision been prepared 
and made for its remedy. 

I affirm yet once more that while hereditary depravity does 
not involve guilt on the part of those who receive it, either for 
the sin which introduced it or on its own account, it is an evil 
which must be removed ; and that the atonement provides for 
its removal or deliverance from its power on the same condi- 
tions on which personal sins are forgiven — regeneration and 
forgiveness being concomitant of the same act of justification 
by which a sinner becomes a child of God and heir of eternal 
life. 



74 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 



LECTURE 4. 
PROCESS AND ELEMENTS OF EXPERIENCE. FORGIVENESS. 

We have seen now how sin was introduced, that is, how man 
came under the miseries of sin. It is not our business in these 
lectures to more than state these scriptural deliverances. We 
find the fact of sin ; this is God's explanation of its origin. 
We assert that no other account ever has been given, or ever 
can be given, which does not make God the direct author of 
sin, and make him solely responsible for it. These facts show 
that God is responsible for creating the possibility of sin, but 
that man is responsible for creating the fact of sin against 
God's expressed prohibition and desire. This statement is in- 
tended in all its inclusions to be exact. There is a measure of 
responsibility on the part of God which must enter into his 
treatment of sin, for the possibility of which his creative act 
had prepared the way. Let us try to find just what that meas- 
ure of responsibility is, and just how it must influence his 
administration. 

This will appear if we reflect : (a) he made the subject so 
that he could sin — if he had not so done there conld have been 
no sin ; (b) he placed him in conditions where he would be ex- 
posed to the temptation to sin — if he had not so done there 
would have been no sin ; (c) he foresaw that he would sin. Of 
these facts there can be no doubt, and in his own account of it 
they are not disguised but are fully stated. Under the light of 
these facts his administration must be vindicated before the 
universe. His holiness, which is but another name for the in- 
finite purity of his justice and love, is involved. 

If the circumstances of the trial were fair up to the point 
where sin emerged there can be no real ground of fault in the 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 75 

divine proceeding up to that point. But an absolute prerequi- 
site to that is that the trial should have been perfectly fair ; that 
is, that the subject of the trial had complete and adequate 
power to know and do what was required. It may be 
well to linger for a moment here. If he create a moral 
being at all he must involve the possibility of sin. The 
one is the inclusion of the other. It was, therefore, the alter- 
native of no moral universe or the possibility of sin. Any 
plan of creation which would exclude a moral universe, that is, 
a universe with persons, would reduce him to the necessity of 
making a universe simply of things, with no minds to enjoy it 
and no ethical or intellectual good to be enjoyed ; a universe, 
therefore, with no other significance than simply a meaning- 
less exhibition of power for himself to contemplate — a uni- 
verse that could display no attribute of either justice or love or 
the infinite perfection of holiness in any form, and from which 
all ethical enjoyment must be excluded. 

If he create moral beings he must put them under moral 
laws. That which his conjoint attributes of justice and love 
require — attributes never separated or separable in administra- 
tion over finite moral beings — is that he enact laws obedience 
to which would express loyalty to essential righteousness, and 
disobedience to which would involve the essence of willful sin. 
For such disobedience he must enact suitable penalties, both as 
incentives to obedience and as expressing his own righteous- 
ness. Such laws must be level to the comprehension of the 
creature or they would be as unjust as unmerciful. The law 
must demand nothing difficult of obedience to the subject in 
view of his measure of ability ; it must, in other words, be ad- 
justed to the kind of faculty he possessed and the precise envi- 
ronments in which he was placed, so as neither to be oppressive 
or difficult. It must furnish him a fair and perfectly equitable 



76 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

chance to secure all the good of obedience and avert all the 
evils of disobedience. Nothing short of this would render it 
possible to vindicate the character of the Creator. And up to 
the point of the occurrence of sin these facts would furnish a 
perfect vindication. 

Allow now that he knew that the perfectly fair trial would 
issue in disobedience, does this circumstance in any way affect 
the question of how he should administer on its occurrence ? 
We are compelled to answer affirmatively. In the first place 
we are compelled to answer that such foreknowledge of the 
outcome, while it is admitted that it would not lessen the 
crime of disobedience, as mere foreknowledge would in no 
way be causative of the act ; and while it would in no way 
render the trial unfair, it must do one of two things — namely, 
(a) either it must estop the creative act because of the evil 
outcome foreknown, or (Z>) it must require the introduction 
of an element of mercy into the administration by which 
pardon would be possible, or the character of God must be 
forever unvindicable before the universe. We assert this, with 
whatever it involves, not merely as probable, but as absolutely 
certain and ethically necessary, and we linger for a moment 
for its defense. That God himself so viewed it is apparent 
in the fact that he did, on the occurrence of the sin, intro- 
duce the mercy element in the administration, and in the further 
fact that he purposed so to do before the creative act. That 
he did so do he declares himself. And that he prepurposed 
so to do was not an unethical purpose, but was so because his 
ethical nature demanded it — because he could not be the eter- 
nally holy God, that is, the eternally just and loving God, and 
not do it. The fact that he did so do, and prepurposed so to 
do, prove that it was according to his nature to do it, and that 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 77 

not to do it would have been contrary to his nature. This is 
a sufficient answer, but it may be useful to state the underlying 
principles which must have so determined him. The question 
whether he would create a moral being who he knew would 
sin against him, and who he knew on the occurrence of sin 
would become accursed, was one touching his free act. Now, the 
determination of that question how he would act must depend 
upon what would be the outcome of the act of the creature he 
was to make. If he knew perfectly that it would issue only in 
curse is it possible to reconcile it to any thing that we are com- 
pelled to think of God that he would proceed to create with no 
alternative in his mind as the means of averting the curse ? 
What could move him to the act ? What end of justice would 
be served ? What end of his own glory in any possible aspect ? 
By supposition he perfectly knew that only one result would 
issue ; that, the eternal and remediless curse of the creature he 
made. The thought that he would proceed with this only alter- 
native is blasphemous. If this were the only alternative pres- 
ent to his thought every attribute of his nature must revolt 
against the creative act. 

But suppose now that he foresaw the sin and the incurrence of 
its penalty, and along with it purposed immediately to intro- 
duce redemption, at once the question, Shall he proceed to create ? 
has another aspect — a new line of administration places the 
question whether he will create or not in a new light. 

The knowledge that the creation of a free being must involve 
the possibility of sin, and the foreknowledge that the possibil- 
ity would certainly ripen into reality, and the knowledge that 
the reality would expose the culprit to curse and ruin, in the 
absence of any plan to avert the calamity, must inevitably have 
arrested the creative act, unless some remedy was seen to be 
possible. But allow the prcpurpose to furnish such a remedy, 



78 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

would then either justice or love now stand in the way of pro- 
cedure ? Would not both of these eternally co-working attri- 
butes unite to impel to the creative act ? To this question there 
can be but one answer ; that is, that in the degree in which a 
personal universe is more to be desired than a mere universe of 
things it would be wise to proceed. 

But still the question would emerge, Suppose that it was 
foreknown that the remedy provided would not be entirely 
effectual; that some among myriads would reject and remain 
under curse; what then? The question is a fair one, and to it 
we have to answer : The case must be reviewed in connection 
of the entire ethical system. 

We think it is safe to assume that if God foresaw that the 
moral system would issue only in disaster he could not on any 
ethical principles have created a moral system. It ip impossi- 
ble to conceive infinite goodness as creating when it was fore- 
known no good, and only evil, would inevitably, or even cer- 
tainly, result from his act. The same principle applies to any 
one individual in the moral system if so be the particular indi- 
vidual could be estopped from existence without involving the 
destruction of a paramount good. But if it was foreknown 
that among a vast number of beings under moral conditions 
some would certainly bring evil upon themselves, but that the 
vast majority would attain to the greatest felicity ; and if it 
were impossible to eliminate the evil without at the same time 
preventing the good, it cannot be shown upon any ethical 
grounds that the good ought to be deprived of existence in 
order to prevent the self-incurred evil of the few who would 
come to grief under the system. 

All that can be required for the perfect vindication of infi- 
nite goodness is that the system adopted should be the best pos- 
sible, securing the greatest amount of good attainable, and 



rHILO SOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 79 

reducing the evil to the lowest minimum. This his own ethical 
nature must require. If it were possible for him to keep out all 
evil without also preventing a paramount good his nature would 
require this. 

Should it be foreknown that evil would arise under the sys- 
tem his whole ethical nature, justice as much as love, would 
put a demand on him to limit it as much as possible by the em- 
ployment of all possible agencies for its extirpation. The nec- 
essary outcome of his proceeding must be that he did all pos- 
sible to prevent evil finding an entrance into the system, and, 
after it made its appearance, every thing possible to extirpate 
it, short of a method that would involve still greater evil by 
eliminating all possible good, or the greatest possible good. 

It is in the light of these principles that we must judge of 
and interpret his proceedings with man, and especially the 
workings of the remedial system. 

But some one is ready to say : Had not God power to pre- 
vent evil from invading the universe ? To say he had not, is 
it not to limit his omnipotence ? To this question we answer 
in two parts : (a) He had the power to prevent evil by not cre- 
ating a moral universe. If he might omit that there would be 
no evil. But could he, as the infinitely good and holy, omit 
it ? (b) But could he not have made a moral system with only 
good in it ? We answer, Yes ; that was precisely the moral 
system he did make. There was no evil in any thing that he 
made. But had he not power to prevent it from being intro- 
duced ? To this we answer again in two parts: (a) Power 
cannot prevent a moral creature from going wrong except by 
de-ethicalizing him, that is, by overthrowing his ethical nature. 
Ethical acts are not preventable by power ; but (b) if he could 
prevent it how is it to be accounted for that he permits it on any 



80 ' PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

other principle than that he prefers it on its own account, or be- 
cause there is a paramount good in it? which is a contradiction. 

It is easy to folly and effrontery to say : Why, if God is dis- 
pleased with sin, did he not prevent it, and if he desires to get 
clear of it why does he not banish it ? But this is mere ebullition 
of ignorance — the cry of the she wolf. 

The answer to all such inane blasphemy is : Sin is here be- 
cause man chooses to sin. It is here, not because God is pleased 
to have it, but because men are pleased to commit it. He did 
not and does not prevent it because he does not choose to abolish 
men and a moral universe, and because he has no power to 
prevent it if free beings choose to have it. His law and the 
sinless system he created represent his feeling with regard to 
it. The plan of rescue from it expresses his desire to get rid 
of it. If there w r ere any other possible, more effectual way, 
it is certain that he would have adopted that. 

Sin is here by choice of man. It is fonnd to be the most 
patent and the most potent fact in human history, and, we may 
be bold to say, the most dreadful fact in the entire history of 
the universe. No one disputes it. Its fell shadow falls athwart 
the entire history of the race. Its malign and awful presence 
reveals itself in every soul of man. It is unmixed evil, and 
portentous of still deeper evil. This statement accords with 
every consciousness. It carries terror to every reflecting mind. 
It projects its portentous gloom over a possible immortality. 
Only fools make light of it. 

To the question, How shall it be dealt with ? what will be the 
outcome ? the guilt-smitten soul returns only the dumb answer 
of instinct. The spontaneous first thought is to appease aveng- 
ing wrath which it feels lowering over it. All heathenism is the 
exponent of this thought. All its rites and offerings are peace- 
offerings — appeasements. The entire history of heathenism 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 81 

proclaims man's consciousness of gnilt and dread of venge- 
ance — his hopeless impotence cowering before the terrors of 
retributive wrath; the impossibility of self-deliverance but the 
inevitability of the effort. No offering can appease avenging 
justice wdiile sin remains. Justice cannot be bought off. The 
thing God hates is sin. The blood of bulls and goats, and 
more costly offerings, is not what he wants. They are nothing 
to him. What is wanted is salvation from sin. That will stay 
all penaltjr — nothing else can. No human effort that comes 
short of this is of any avail. The problem is how to get rid 
of sin. That solved, all else is easy. Sacrifices do not put it 
away. No sacrifice; not even the great sacrifice God himself 
provided. No sacrifice appeases. What is wanted is not ap- 
peasement ; it is the removal of sin. This can never be done 
in any other way than by inducing the sinner to renounce it. 
In order to that he must be revolutionized — made over. 

As any sacrifices he may offer cannot do that, so also he 
cannot revolutionize himself. He has no power to do it in 
himself. Here is where the religion of culture is a failure. 
Culture cannot remove guilt. Culture cannot change the nat- 
ure. These are the things that are wanted. Sin kills. What 
is needed is a power to make alive. 

Failing to appease avenging wrath by any thing it can do, 
and failing to be able to restore itself by any thing that it can 
do — hopelessly guilty, bound hand and foot to evil, smitten with 
despair — the affrighted soul turns upon its Maker and Sovereign 
and accuses him as a merciless tyrant. In vain does Sover- 
eignty reply : Is not the law just ? Does it require any thing 
oppressive ? Is it not beneficent as well as just ? Would not 
obedience to it have worked for the highest welfare ? Does 
not its transgression work endless harm and misery? As a 
loving sovereign was I not bound to make such a law ? Would 



82 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

I have "been guiltless had I made any other law less perfect % 
Can I be just or true to the creatures I have made and permit 
it to be set aside and trampled on ? Am I not bound to secure 
the good it provides for by compelling it to be respected by 
enforcing its sanctions ? Were not you fully warned of the 
consequences of transgression ? Was not your disobedience a 
free voluntary act ? Is not the harm that comes to you in its 
penalties of your own procuring? Can you with reason or 
justice complain of me for your self-incurred evil by the per- 
verse and willful abuse of what I intended for your good ? 
The defense seems to be fair. There is not one of the allega- 
tions implied against which a word can be said. 

But despite the defense the affrighted soul feels that, dealt 
with on these principles of rigorous justice, it is the victim of 
a great wrong — the justice is too severe to be just, even ; in its 
unrelenting rigcrs it overleaps itself and becomes stained — 
justice, pure and simple, unmixed with mercy toward a finite 
and fallable creature, becomes cruelty. The soul continues its 
plea. It says, allow that justice condemns with justice, yet 
the thing is wrong. The injustice lies further back, in giving 
me existence and placing me in exposedness to such a fate. It 
is cruelty to create a fallable creature and place him under cir- 
cumstances where he may, however freely, incur remediless evil 
upon a single chance. I had no choice in my creation. Your 
sovereign act placed me here in being. You made me what I 
am. Had it been possible to know these grievous possibilities, 
and had I been allowed a choice, I would have preferred not 
to be. It was an act of pure and cruel despotism that made 
me under conditions that have brought these evils upon me. 
There is not even the excuse of good intention marred by un- 
foreseen contingencies. Thou knewest even when creating me 
what the outcome was sure to be. Waxing still more bold, the 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 83 

defiant, not merely affrighted and helpless, soul continues its 
plea. Looking Sovereignty in the face it says : I never had a 
chance ; I was sent here maimed — a hopeless cripple, with im- 
possibility to do otherwise than sin. The blight of another's 
curse for his own sin, not mine, reached me in the womb ere I 
was born, and so warped my faculties that e cape from this 
curse which I now suffer was never in my reach. I am fore- 
doomed by the sin of another, of which my sins are unfree ac- 
cidents however they seem to be my free and personal acts. 

To this impeachment there is and can be no answer if we 
suppose the divine government based and administered on the 
principle of abstract and absolute justice alone which renders 
penalty irremissible if the subject is to be such a subject as 
man. With such a subject there can be no irremissible pen- 
alty for sin. There may be penalty e'.ernally inflicted but it 
must be remissible penalty. That it continues forever must 
"iot be because he who executes it could not and would not re- 
mit it, but because he who suffers it has finally and irreversi- 
bly rejected the merciful conditions on which alone it could be 
remitted. The penalty abides because the sinner has irreversi- 
bly and freely determined the rejection of proffered pardon, 
fixing himself in sin, and not because it is de-facto irremissible. 

In recognizing the principle of mercy and possible pardon, 
and in providing for it in actual administration, which all ad- 
mit, God himself shows that the actual administration is not on 
the principle of abstract and absolute justice alone, and is not 
so because it ought not, that is, ethically could not, be so carried 
on. The mercy which he introduced was not unethical, but what, 
was obligatory on him as an immutable ethical principle of his 
nature ; as much so as that of justice itself. Grace is his free 
act, but not, therefore, in contravention with ethical obligation. 
He could no more administer without mercy than without j ustice. 



84 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

Mercy must not be in contravention of justice, and no 
more can justice be in contravention of mercy. The two eter- 
nal and immutable attributes must be administratively harmo- 
nious. The law in all of its requirements and sanctions must 
accord with perfect justice, for he cannot be in conflict with 
justice. It must be administered in mercy, but not at the 
sacrifice of the principle of justice, for he cannot be less than 
merciful. This was the great problem, the greatest of all prob- 
lems, for the Infinite to solve. To the impeachment of igno- 
rant fright and terror the infinite heart of love replies: "It is 
not so. The case is not at all as you put it ; it is the extreinest 
opposite. If my dealing with you were as you assume, though 
you are a worm, and even on the ground that you are a worm 
aud I the Almighty, your accusation would be just. I should 
then deserve the execration of every creature in the universe. 
I should not be able to think of myself but with abhorence. If 
there is a single creature in the wide realm of existence whom 
I have treated as you allege you have been treated, no matter 
what his sin, my infamy were greater than that of devils. But 
you are mistaken. The indictment is false in all of its essen- 
tial and malign features. This is what is true : I did permit 
you to be brought into existence with a marred nature whose 
tendencies are to evil. It is also true that it is by reason of no 
fault of yours that you are so marred. It is further true that 
you have no power to remedy the marring of nature which 
comes to you by inheritance. It is also true that your per- 
sonal sins have had their source in the natural depravity which 
was propagated in you without your consent. So much I am 
compelled to admit. If now the defense stopped here nothing 
is more certain than that the indictment would stand in every 
feature of it. But infinite love proceeds with its defense : It 
is not true that I have ever accounted you guilty, or that I have 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 85 

ever proposed to punish you for the nature you inherit, or that 
I have required of you the impossible tiling of rectifying it by 
your unaided self-power. It is not true that I have left you 
to the inevitable punishment of your sins personally commit- 
ted by the free choice of evil, even. It is not true that I have 
cruelly forsaken you in your sad and helpless condition and 
left you to your self-chosen wickedness. What is true is, I 
have ever been a pitying Father. In your helplessness I have 
laid help upon One mighty to save ; I have borne with you ; I 
have provided for you full and ample opportunities to make 
your existence one of immeasurable blessedness. This is the 
one thing I have constantly sought in all my dealings with you. 
I have made infinite sacrifice for you ; I have employed all 
possible influences to save you ; I have offered forgiveness on 
the single condition that you renounce your sins ; I have per- 
suaded and entreated you. If finally you are lost it will be 
after all efforts to save you have been unavailing, and then 
only because when it was fully in your power, made so by un- 
solicited help, you have rejected offered mercy and have of 
your own volition irreversibly elected evil instead of good. I 
call the universe to witness that I have exhausted the resources 
of infinite love. What could I have done that I have not 
done ? " 

This defense accords with the exact facts ; and that it is 
a perfect defense no spirit in the universe can gainsay. Love 
intones all the proceedings of God with respect to man from 
the beginning to the end. There is not a chapter from the 
opening chapter in Eden, not an incident to the closing chap- 
ter of eternal doom, that does not reveal infinite love as pre- 
siding over the destinies of men. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 



LECTURE 5. 

ELEMENTS OF EXPERIENCE. 

The preceding discussions Lave sufficiently developed the 
principles and the facts of administration under which Chris- 
tian experience emerges ; that it is the experience of a soul 
under a beneiicent probation, under which every soul of man 
lias a fair chance to secure to itself a happy immortality. 

The discussion first disclosed how man became involved in 
sin, and then unfolded the method by which infinite love seeks 
to deliver him from sin by a continued probation under 
redemptive influences and agencies. It further developed that 
in the entire history and providential plan of proceeding there 
is nothing arbitrary, or artificial, or merely volitional on the 
part of God, but that the whole proceeding has been and is 
conducted on the immutable ethic of the divine nature. 

I deem it important, before stiting the facts of experience 
which in their wholeness constitute Christian experience, to 
state once more that they are facts which do not emerge in the 
soul by its own agency alone, nor by the agency of God alone, 
but by the concurrence and coiiction of God the Father, God 
the Son, and God the Holy Ghost — the Trinity in the Godhead 
— with the soul. 

I reaffirm also that God in Trinity has no power to recover 
the sinful an 1 guilty soul without its coaction. This may seem 
like a bold statement, but a moment's reflection, without argu- 
ment, will justify it. If it were possible to Godhead to save 
the soul without its coaction, then all souls would be brought 
to the experience of salvation if it were not that God did not 
wish to save them ; for if he could work salvation in one 
without his coaction, he could work salvation in all without 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 87 

their coaction. The explanation why some will not be saved 
is not that God did not choose to save some, and did choose to 
save others ; but because some souls determined, by a free, 
irreversible choice, not to be saved. 

This position is essential to the philosophy of Christian 
experience, and is important to be emphasized, because of a 
long time vicious theologizing, which ascribes every thing in 
salvation — that is, in Christian experience— to the direct and 
sovereign act of God on the souls of a certain number called 
the elect, or to an irresistible efficacy in means employed. In 
either form the idea is unethical and false. Nothing done by 
God, either through or without the atonement, ever did or ever 
can save a responsible human soul without its own coaction. 

The truth is, God seeks to save all men, and out of his infi- 
nite love, self-moved, has provided means and a method of 
salvation, which include conditions to be performed freely by 
man ; and among these means are the atonement (atonement is 
only a means) wrought by Christ, and a revelation of that fact 
to man, accompanied with instructions, invitations, and prom- 
ises, and with helpful influences of the Holy Ghost, empower- 
ing, but not coercing, man to comply with the conditions. 
Until the conditions are complied with salvation is not effected. 
When man performs his part God saves him ; that is, brings 
him into the full and completed experience of salvation. Thus 
God and man are co-factors. The wdiole scheme of salvation is 
to be interpreted in the light of this principle, and it is fatal to 
the whole scheme of election and all the unethical postulates 
and warnings connected therewith, and the doctrine of atone- 
ment built thereon. 

Before more specifically naming and elaborating the several 
separate elements of Christian experience, we call attention to 
the fact that there is an exact and logical order in which these 



88 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

elementary parts emerge. The order is philosophical ; that is, 
rational; it never is and cannot be inverted. Each incident 
occupies the precise place it must occupy to accord with the 
mental and moral constitution of the soul, and each incident 
has a different i able conditioning ground. The experience is a 
unity out of severalty, each incident of which is necessary to 
the completed whole— nothing can be transposed or omitted, 
though the experience may be intermitted at any point short 
of completion — the beginning does not necessarily carry with 
it the end. The end is only secured by the soul freely comply- 
ing with the conditions until the end is reached. No soul ever 
did or ever can comply with the conditions throughout and the 
end fail. 

Christian experience is absolute proof of the truth of Chris- 
tianity. There is perfect harmony between the experience 
and the entire code of doctrines in the Christian system. All 
the doctrines have bearing in some way on the experience. 
The experience is Christianity incarnated — concrete experience 
of it. 

What are the elements of , Christian experience? In the 
present lecture they will be named and explained in the order 
of their occurrence. 

We are now prepared to take up and examine the facts of 
Christian experience. There are elements in Christian experi- 
ence that are common to all men, which therefore exist where 
no completed Christian experience exists, but without which 
there is no Christian experience; which, therefore, must be 
taken account of in any adequate statement of the constitutive 
elements of Christian experience. The beginnings of grace 
are revealed in every adult human soul. These primary and 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 89 

initial experiences constitute the conditioning grounds of all 
subsequent experiences, without which they would be impossi- 
ble ; they furnish the necessary bases of all after stages. They 
are of divine emanation. The human soul has no power to lift 
itself to God, if God do not first condescend to it. It must 
forever remain in the sensuosity into which it is fallen, did not 
God lift it up out of the abysm by some helpful movement 
upon it, enabling it to coact with him. This is called initial 
grace. 

Divine illumination is the first element in any soul's de 
facto redemption — its first redemptive experience. This is 
vouchsafed in a degree to every human soul. There is a divine 
"light that lighteneth every man that cometh into the world," 
which is sufficient, if followed, to lead it to its fountain and 
source, so that there is no absolute necessity that any soul of 
man should be lost. But the light which shines dimly in the 
benighted chambers of a heathen soul, while it may lead it to 
the everlasting fountain of light and life, is not adequate to a 
Christian experience. There must be added supernatural 
revelation. The light which shines from the holy pages of 
revelation and from the holy character of Jesus of Nazareth 
furnishes the divine illumination which is necessary to the 
dawn of Christian experience. Through these God comes to 
the sensualized soul, and by their shining lights up the super- 
sensuous and unseen, as nature and the Spirit in the use of 
mere nature do not. In their shining the powers of the 
invisible world appear — the soul discerns itself and its law — the 
path of duty and of life is made plain to it. The divine illu- 
mination thus projected into the soul becomes matter of con- 
sciousness. Under it all things appear in a new light ; that 
which was before in a haze of uncertainty becomes real ; faith 



90 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

in the supersensible is born. It is the first end of " the path 
that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." It is a 
holy light, and it reveals the "holy of holies" — the holiness of 
God, the holiness of heaven, and the great fact that nothing 
unholy can enter therein. The human soul, under divine 
illumination, becomes conscious of a law revealed to it which 
demands holiness. The heavenly light opens upon it ineffable 
sanctities. 

Conviction, the second stage of experience, is born. The 
illuminated soul, under the heavenly shining, discovers that it 
is utterly defiled. Patent as that fact now becomes to its 
consciousness, but for that opening to it of the holy of holies 
it could never have made the discovery. To a soul that has 
closed its doors against the shining of that holy light sin seems 
a trivial thing — an accident or mistake merely — a passing 
misconduct— a happening that has no deep significance, which 
comes to the earthly life of man and makes a momentary stain, 
may be, but which time and other experiences will efface ; but, 
to one who has seen God in his revelation, who has passed 
through into the inner shrine of the divine sanctities, that has 
seen the veil uplifted, and through the veil has beheld the 
unspeakable vision of stainless and immaculate purities — the 
effulgence of a holiness before which even the heavens are 
stained and angels are charged with folly — a blaze of righteous- 
ness which consumes all iniquity — sin becomes exceeding 
sinful, a very tragedy of evil. That such is the eternal holiness 
of God is the burden of revelation ; the express teaching is, 
that he cannot look upon sin with allowance — that it is the one 
thins: which his nature abhors with unmitigated loathing*. 

In the light of this revelation the illuminated soul sees itself, 
and there is borne in upon it the sense of utter guilt and defile- 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN" EXPERIENCE. 91 

ment. The eternal ethic slays it. To it sin is never again 
mere petty delinquencies — mere external follies and foibles — 
the ephemeral incidents or escapades of transient thoughtlessness. 
The blaze of day has penetrated its innermost consciousness, 
and the holy law lays itself along-side of the habitual thoughts 
and desires and purposes which are found there, and the dis- 
covery is made to it that itself is shot through and through 
with the deadly vims — that itself is rotten and leprous, a 
filthy cage of reptiles and unclean birds, that it is evil and only 
evil, and that continually — that its very sanctities arc unholy 
lusts. It sums up its whole moral consciousness in one word : 
" Unclean, unclean, unclean." No soul lias ever seen itself i:i 
the light of revelation, or in the light of true self-knowledge, 
that will not recognize the realism of this dreadful picture. 

There is a general vague sense of sin which all men feel. 
Under redemption no soul of man is or can be without this. It 
emerges in the dimmest twilight of ethical consciousness. It 
brings to the soul disquiet and unrest, unsatisfiedness with itself, 
weariness with its state, the dull pain of a diseased nerve ; but it 
is often for a time, and possibly on account of personal delin- 
quency forever, kept under opiates or drowned with dissipations 
or eager pursuits of pleasure or business. It is incipient but 
smothered conviction. 

The grace of thorough awakening, when admitted to the 
soul — that is, when the soul yields its consent to look at itself in 
the light of the divine law — is a great uplift toward spiritual life, 
the beginning of a great experience, often alarming and deeply 
painful at first, but always medicative, healing, the bursting open 
of the door for the in-coming of a celestial guest. 

It is not pretended that in every case of genuine Christian 
experience there is the same degree of vivid consciousness of 
the utter corruption of the heart or the same ohenomena of self- 



92 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE, 

accusing. Personal history accounts for wide diversity ; but a 
sense of guilt is a universal concomitant of all Christian experi- 
ence. Many times the divine illumination brings out into start- 
ling prominence some one act of enormous sin and fixes the 
gaze of the soul exclusively upon it, and impales, transfixes it 
with the single fact. Many times it is a long line of criminal 
offenses, a life-time of sins, that is held before its gaze. Again, 
it is simple conviction of neglect, ingratitude, unworthiness ; 
but it must be conviction of sin, consciousness- of guilt, if the 
soul is ever to rise out of it into a sense of pardon. Sinfulness 
emerges as ground of condemnation. 

Now it is possible to conceive of the soul's experience stop- 
ping here. There is no absolute necessity in the nature of the 
soul that it should ever pass from under or beyond this experi- 
ence. We should then have a soul forever self-condemned and 
gnawed with perpetual remorse, or a dead or a lost soul. Itself 
could never abolish the fact of its guilt. The law which con- 
demns it could never be reversed, for it is an immutable law. 
Its condemnation must be perpetual and its remorse everlast- 
ing — the inextinguishable fire and the deathless worm, the hell 
of the Bible. If we suppose the process to stop here, conviction 
is not an element of Christian experience, but an element of the 
experience of a lost soul that might have led on to Christian 
experience. To raise conviction to the quality of an element 
of grace, and thus bring it into the line of saving experience, it 
must condition a further experience. 

We have said that the soul has no power to reverse the facts 
and lift itself out from under the condemnation which kills it. 
If now we suppose God to be moved with pity at its forlorn 
condition, and by as imperative a law as the law of holiness it- 
self we are compelled to think he was, and could not but be, so 
moved (and this intuitive judgment is shown to be true by his 



PHILOSOPIIY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 93 

own revelation, for lie declares that lie was so moved with pity), 
the question emerges, how could pity become available to rem- 
edy the case ? 

It is certain that there are some things which God, however 
moved by pity, could not do. He could not reverse his own law 
without subverting his own immaculate holiness, for his law is 
the simple exponent and expression of his holiness. He could 
not change the fact of sin. It is not in the power of God even 
to make that not a fact which is a fact. He could not ignore the 
fact and treat the guilty sinner as if he were not a sinner; for 
that would require him to subvert the ethic of his own nature 
by making no. distinction between righteousness and unright- 
eousness. He could not force a reversal of character in the sin- 
ner himself; for that would be to reduce the sinner from a per- 
son to a thing, and so to violate the law of his personality. 
These are things which we know could not be. And yet we 
know just as certainly as we know any one of these facts that 
mercy is one of the eternal attributes of his nature, precisely 
as we know that justice is. 

The law convicts of sin, and still sets forth its unabated com- 
mand — relaxes nothing. There is no salvation by the law. But 
so there is no salvation without it. It must do its work. It 
must convince of sin, whether the sinner be saved or not. If 
punished, it must be with the knowledge and consciousness of 
sin. If saved, it must also be after the knowledge and deep 
consciousness of sin. Without this consciousness it is impossible 
that it should be brought forward into other experiences which 
are necessary to the experience of pardon. 

That the process do not stop here it is requisite there should 
be further illumination by a further revelation. The law is not 
sufficient. Up to this stage the soul stands before the external 
and internal Sinai — the eternal law and inexorable justice. The 



94 PHILOSOPHY OF 'CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

revelation transfixes with terror — slays it. There is nothing else 
that it can do. No sound of mercy intones condemning law. Its 
only sentence is : "The soul that sinneth, it shall die.'' It pro- 
vides for no pardons. It inspires no hope. It relentlessly 
kills. The glare of its awful light smites with despair and death. 
The eternal ethic of the divine nature requires that it should 
be so. 

But, then, is there no salvation ? None by the way of Sinai. 
The law cannot save. Nor can there be salvation by the over- 
throw of the law. Nor can there be salvation inconsistent with 
law. We may venture to say the problem is too deep for us. 
Humanity can neither save itself, nor see any way in which God 
himself can save the guilty. 

Calvary furnishes the only solution. The probation under 
law is not final. The case is transferred from the law to the 
Gospel. Probation is carried over from the region of law to the 
provisions of grace. It is God who changed the venue and or- 
dered the trial to proceed under new conditions. It is thus 
that salvation is of God. 

I do not here enter the polemic as to how God could adjourn 
the case from strict justice or mere law to the court of mercy. 
It is sufficient that he did so do. That fact proves that it was 
in harmony with the eternal ethic of his nature to do it. 

I re-affirm that it was a necessity to his nature to do so in his 
administration over a race and over the individuals of a race 
constituted as our race is. lie could no more be an infinitely 
holy God without the mercy which provides a possible pardon 
to sin in a case such as man's, than he could if the principle of 
justice were left out of his administration. God's throne could 
not stand unimpeached under the single aspect of abstract and 
inexorable justice as the dominating principle of administration. 
I venture to go yet further, and to affirm that there is no such 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 95 

attribute in God as abstract justice unintoned with mercy. He 
is always just ; never less than just ; but lie is also always merci- 
ful. It is a necessity to the peace of the universe that his throne 
should be clothed with the milder attribute of compassion in 
any degree that will be consistent with the general welfare of 
the S3 r stem. Mere justice is the last resort of administration 
after mercy has exhausted all its resources. The final act of 
justice in awarding punishment can never be reached without 
previous efforts of mercy to avert the necessity ; so that justice 
does not stand alone in the administration. 

The seemingly contradictory ideas of rigorous justice and 
placable mercy are the immutable foundation of the ethical system. 
They are twin and mutually modifying attributes of the divine 
nature, never separated and, neither, never alone in administra- 
tion. Together they constitute the holiness of the divine law 
and the eternal holiness of the divine nature as that nature is 
expressible in administration over finite beings. If it is possi- 
ble to conceive of abstract justice as an element of the divine 
nature, it must be apart from administration. When the Infinite 
passes out of himself into relations with the finite, the eternal 
ethic of his own nature requires that his dealings with them 
should be mercifully tempered to their condition. 

Invitation or vocation. — Following conviction and the de- 
spair which it awakens is the experience of a drawing of the 
spirit to God — a persuasion or invitation. 

In the writings of the older and some of the recent Calvin- 
istic theologians much is made of what they styled " vocation." 
It was placed as the initial experience of grace. The theory of 
election gave it its place and significance in the system. That 
theory, the supralapsarian form, was that antecedently to crea- 
tion itself, indeed from eternity, God elected a certain definite 
7 



96 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

number of souls yet to be created unto everlasting life-#-which 
number, and the particular souls included in it, was so fixed that 
it could neither be increased nor diminished — without any 
thought of any thing in them ; and to secure the benefit of this 
sovereign and purely arbitrary election to them he gave his Son 
to make atonement for them and for them only, and his Holy 
Spirit to apply the saving benefits of the atonement to them in 
such manner that it should forever be impossible that any one 
of them should fail of salvation. Infralapsarians made the 
decree of election follow the lapse. 

Vocation was declared to be the irresistible (sometimes modi- 
fied in the use of other terms, as efficacious, effectual calling) 
grace whereby the Spirit caused elect souls to be willing to 
embrace proffered salvation. It was held that others were 
called ; that is, invited ; hut the effectual call was only extended 
to the elect, and without the effectual call none could accept, 
but might reject, and be held guilty of the sin of rejection. 

The doctrine of vocation as thus taught has no place in the 
word of God, and nothing analogous to it in Christian experi- 
ence. The idea on which it rests is a defamation of God. 

The only thing approaching it is the universal call of the 
Holy Spirit, which accompanies illumination and conviction, to 
all men to repent and turn to God. There is no foundation 
for the odious doctrine of a special effectual vocation to one 
and common vocation to another — the former addressed to elect 
souls and the latter to the non-elect. 

It does accord with common experience that God calls upon 
all men every- where to repent, and by consequence that all men 
may respond — that is, that sufficient grace is extended to all to 
enable them to respond — to the invitation. To the illuminated 
and awakened soul the invitation is entreating and persuasive, 
— a divine drawing not because they are elect, but because they 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 97 

give heed. God never violates the eternal ethic of the spiritual 
world which applies to all spirits equally — that is, the law which 
forever treats them as free responsible persons, before whom he 
sets life and death, always and without discrimination offering 
life and making its attainment possible on the same terms and 
persuading them thereto. Any vocation that exists is a common, 
impartial, and universal vocation — never irresistible, always 
sincere. 

The invitations are accompanied with the revelation of 
Christ as an atoning Saviour. The soul made conscious of the 
divine invitation, and having revealed to it that Christ is its 
Saviour and friend, through whom mercy may be obtained, 
and especially being informed of the sacrifice he made of him- 
self for it, has begotten in it hope. 

The fourth stage of experience is reached : penitence is he- 
gotton in the soul. The order cannot be reversed. There 
most be first illumination in order to conviction ; further il- 
lumination in .order to invitation, and invitation in order to 
hope, and hope in order to penitence. 

If force were possible on ethical grounds there is every rea- 
son to believe it would be employed not in a few but in every 
case. It is excluded in an ethical system. Along with the in- 
vitation comes the further illumination that God will forgive. 
Christ is introduced as a Saviour. 

As in order to conviction the soul must be brought face to 
face with broken law, so in order to hope of pardon, which is 
the dawn of repentance, it must be brought face to face with 
the Gospel — the invitations, promises, and mighty persuasions 
of love. 

The repentance which ensues upon invitation and the open- 
ing to the soul of the door of a possible pardon is a well-de- 



98 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

lined experience, and its source is also well defined and its rela- 
tion to precedent states natural and logical. It is impossible 
that it should exist without that which goes before. 

We have said that it is a well-defined experience. It is 
proper that we should note what it is. The etymology of the 
term scarcely defines it. It does indeed imply or involve a ret- 
rospective thinking — a rethinking. In it the mind is carried 
back to the contemplation of its sin, and the thought of its sin 
is a second better thought ; but it is more a feeling than a 
thought — a feeling begotten of a thought. 

The first and natural effect of conviction, which is the state 
which immediately precedes repentance and which conditions 
it, is simple remorse and despair. These spring from the view 
the soul has of itself under law. They are the only feelings 
the soul can have under law. 

Remorse and despair are not elements of repentance. In 
order to repentance the soul must be freed from these. While 
they possess it it is impossible any other emotion should enter; 
they paralyze every other feeling ; their domination is death. 
Nor is repentance a mere barren regret which occupies itself 
merely, or even chiefly, with apprehended penal consequences 
of sin, or even the disgrace of sin. In this feeling, of mere re- 
gret as in despair and remorse, the soul is concerned only 
about itself. It is purely selfish ; it has in it nothing redeem- 
ing or restorative ; it is a sorrow that worketh death. All such 
states spring from the law which kills. They are of the essence 
of ultimate death of the soul — the gnawing of the worm that 
dieth not. In order to salvation the soul must be lifted out of 
them and delivered from them. 

The first tendency under deep awakening of the soul to the 
sense of sin is to these states, and they would inevitably be- 
come fixed states did not the Holy Spirit through the Gospel 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 99 

turn the gaze of the awakened and alarmed soul away from it- 
self to its Saviour. The law having performed its function, 
the Gospel must come with its healing balm. Calvary must 
take the place of Sinai ; remorse must give way to contrition. 
It is the broken heart that pleads for forgiveness. Repentance 
is the triumph of love. No sinful soul ever was or ever can be 
saved until it has a vision of love upon the throne of the uni- 
verse. It is love that breaks the stony heart ; it is love that 
unseals the fountain of penitential tears ; it is love that inspires 
the cry for forgiveness. 

Repentance thus inspired by the revelation of love embraces 
these elements. It is a composite grace, the recognition of 
God as a loving, long-suffering, patient, and forgiving Father ; 
it sees him in Christ on the cross for its redemption; it beholds 
him with extended arms calling to it, the father waiting the 
return of the prodigal child ; it says, " I will arise and go to my 
father ; " it says, I have nothing but sin ; it feels its poverty and 
shame, its filthy rags and disgrace ; it renounces all the past 
and turns its back upon it ; it detests and hates its sin. Not 
daring to look up it wails its piteous lament, rushes into the 
father's arms, and sobs upon his bosom : " Father, I am no 
more worthy to be called thy son : make me as one of thy 
hired servants." This is repentance. No other feeling is gen- 
uine repentance. 

The next point we make is that repentance is not an ulti- 
mate end as an experience. It conditions a further experience. 
If it were possible to conceive the experience to stop with it, it 
would be to no purpose. Appropriate as it manifestly is it 
would not be satisfactory as a fixed state. It is impossible to 
the mental or ethical nature to find content in it as an end. 
We are under the necessity of viewing it as means to an end. 



100 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

The end for which it exists is forgiveness. The whole move- 
ment of the consecutive and correlated experiences from the 
start is to that end. Does it reach the end? No. Can the 
end be reached without it ? No. Does it go toward the end ? 
Yes. No soul smitten with sin can be forgiven without re- 
pentance. We pause at this point for a moment. The fact 
which we assert here with such positiveness, that a soul cannot 
be forgiven without repentance, is fundamental. It is not sim- 
ply because God has made repentance a condition of forgive- 
ness that forgiveness cannot take place without it. "We do 
not say that a volitional condition might not be made the 
ground of pardon, but we do say that this is not one of that 
kind. There is an irreversible ethical reason why it is so. 

This will appear if we consider what forgiveness means. 
The experience of forgiveness is not the next sequent upon re- 
pentance, and it will be stated in its proper place; but we 
briefly refer to it here. Forgiveness means restoration to favor. 
To suppose that it could take place without repentance would 
imply that an impenitent sinner — that is, a sinner in whose heart 
there is still the love and practice of sin — could be regarded 
with favor. The idea subverts the essential principle of eth- 
ics. Kepentance is therefore a necessary antecedent to for- 
giveness. 

But, then, has atonement in Christ no relation to pardon ? 
We answer, Yes ; it has every thing to do with it, so much so 
that there is no pardon without atonement. The atonement 
conditions all experience of salvation. Infants even are not 
saved without atonement. The heathen who never heard of 
Christ, nevertheless if saved at all, and we cannot doubt that 
many of them are saved and all might be, their salvation is 
conditioned by the atonement. The atonement conditions di- 
vine forgiveness in every case. Without atonement in Christ 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 101 

there is no salvation ; but the atonement does not alone save. 
It provides a possible salvation, and under the Christian law 
the salvation which is made possible by atonement is condi- 
tioned on " repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ." 
There is no forgiveness under the Christian dispensation prom- 
ised on any other ground. 

Repentance itself is offspring of atonement. Atonement 
does not save without repentance, but it furnishes the condi- 
tions of repentance to the transgressor, and it furnishes the 
conditions of pardon on the part of the sovereign, and atone- 
ment arises self-moved in the divine heart. It is outbirth of 
God's love : " God so loved," etc. In order to properly under- 
stand the fact and significance of repentance, the relation of 
atonement to Christian experience and to salvation needs to be 
more fully explained. To attempt to explain the philosophy 
of Christian experience and salvation without the atonement is 
the same absurdity as to explain them without Christ. "Not a 
single element of experience can be explained without Christ 
and without atonement in Christ. 

The polemic touching the relation of atonement to pardon we 
cannot enter here at length or in further detail. 

Let us keep constantly in mind that we are not simply aiming 
to give a true statement of the facts of Christian experience, but 
also a philosophy of it ; that is, an explanation of the sources or 
conditioning grounds of the facts and their significance to an 
end — their coherence and unity. 

We have found what repentance is, and we have found how 
it becomes an experience of the soul. We have seen that it is 
an incident in a line of incidents, which is in order to ultimate 
salvation ; that is, the restoration of the soul to the forfeited 
favor of God and the enjoyment of his forgiving love. Is it 
not manifest that as an experience it occupies its precise and 



102 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

only possible place in the line of incidents? Could it change 
place with any preceding experience? Is it not conditioned 
upon anlecedent sin and conviction of sin under law? Is it 
not conditioned further on illumination or revelation of the 
Gospel ? Is it not precisely the experience which logically 
and ethically should follow these antecedent and conditioning 
experiences ? Could the ultimate outcome ever be reached 
without it ? 

We now make the point that, while repentance is absolutely 
necessary to pardon, it is not the last necessity precedent. Were 
the experience to stop here pardon could not become an accom- 
plished fact. It is difficult to conceive how a really penitent 
soul should not be forgiven. I venture the position that such 
a case does not exist ; nevertheless, another act intervenes be- 
tween penitence and pardon as final condition. That act is 
the act of faith. 

It, after all, is the essential act. " Salvation is by faith." All 
that precedes faith is conditioning to it, as it is conditioning to 
salvation. Take away what goes before, faith becomes impossi- 
ble. Leave out faith, salvation becomes impossible. 

Repentance brings us to the point in the line of spiritual 
movement where faith becomes the natural and logical next. Up 
to this point we have these facts : the sinner slain by the law ; 
the sinner under the illumination of the Gospel brought to re- 
pentance and supplicating for mercy. He has as yet received 
no assurance of pardon ; in fact, he is not pardoned — the burden 
of the sense of guilt is still upon him. 

Is there any thing more that he can do — any thing else that he 
is required to do ? If so, what is that next logical sequent ? He 
has been moved by manifestations of love, and by invitations 
and promises, to repent and sue for pardon. Now, how can 






PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 103 

pardon become a realized fact in his consciousness ? Manifestly 
it is impossible without a further act on his part. He must 
have faith — he must implicitly trust the promises. Faith is 
the hand by which he received the pardon. It cannot be be- 
stowed, that is, it cannot reach him, without faith. Not only 
can he not be conscious of pardon without faith, but the fact 
of pardon cannot take place in the divine mind without faith in 
the recipient. Non-faith leaves the soul still in an attitude of 
unreconciliation — it is of the nature of sin. 

You will observe that not only does faith become a necessity 
in order to the next fact which emerges in the moral movement, 
that is, pardon— the end for which the whole process exists — 
but it occupies the precise place it must occupy in the move- 
ment. It could not possibly exist antecedently to repentance. 
It is impossible that an impenitent soul should have faith. It 
must first repent before it can trust God for pardon. To trust 
him for pardon while it is in a state of impenitence is to 
blaspheme his holiness. Faith must respect immutable, ethical 
principles and conditions. When the soul is repentant faith is 
made possible to it, and therefore required of it on the two 
grounds of promise, and the intuition that penitence, if alone 
it does not furnish a condition which ethically demands pardon, 
does furnish a condition which seems to make pardon possi- 
ble and proper. Given the atonement and attendant invita- 
tions and promises, together with the helpful influence of the 
Holy Spirit, and the intuition of an ethical propriety to sup- 
port the mind, it makes the demand for faith not oppressive, 
but both reasonable and ethical — it ought to be. 

Let us now inquire more critically, what is faith ? We shall 
find in the analysis why it is that faith occupies so conspicuous 
a place in the scheme of salvation. 



104 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

What is faith f "We note, first, in answer to the question, 
What is faith ? that faith is a free act of the soul by the soul. The 
Calvinistic fund amen turn — for it is that to the system, that God 
creates faith in the soul, except in a modified sense— is false in 
fact ; and in view of the place which it holds in the scheme of 
salvation it is unethical. Faith is a complex mental, emotional, 
and volitional act ; the proper conditions of which are f ui;nished 
to the soul, but it is the proper act of the soul itself. If salvation 
is by faith, and if faith were created in the soul by a- sovereign act 
of God, we have as the inevitable outcome that salvation is a 
necessitated result ; and along with it all the unethical inclusions 
of that fact. To make faith a condition of salvation, and then 
make God the author of faith, is to transfer the conditions from 
the subject soul and make God condition a result of his own act 
upon his ow r n performance. Faith, while a free act, is an act 
which is under mental law, not a capricious act. There are 
conditions under which alone it can take place. The soul has no 
power to exercise faith unless the conditions of the faith act 
exist. An impenitent soul cannot exercise faith. To suppose 
that he can is to suppose the soul capable of believing that God 
can and will forgive sin while sin is rampant in the soul ; and it 
is more than that : it is to suppose the soul able to commit itself 
to God trustingly while it is raging against him ; it is a con- 
tradiction. Thus faith as a condition of salvation involves also 
penitence as a condition of salvation, and all the antecedents of 
penitence which condition it. This we emphasize as an im- 
portant statement. It is sometimes said, salvation is by faith 
alone — naked faith. If it means that salvation is not without 
faith, or that salvation always ensues upon faith as final condi- 
tion, the statement is correct; but if it means that the final faith 
act may stand alone and apart from precedent states and 
acts, so that salvation can be without them, it is not a correct 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 105 

statement ; and it is ethically vicious, and dangerously mis- 
leading. Faith is placed as the condition of salvation as 
including all conditioning antecedents — atonement in Christ, 
conviction of sin, repentance, confession, and supplication. 
These concomitants, unitedly and never separately, furnish 
the ethics of pardon ; that is, the ethical ground on which pardon 
can be and is issued. 

We return to the inquiry, what is faith ? We have said it is 
a composite intellectual, emotional, and volitional act ; that is, 
it is an act in which the entire soul — intellect, sensibilities and 
will — is exercised ; in which the entire soul surrenders itself to 
God as Lord and Sovereign, as well as Saviour. It is thus not 
an ephemeral or superficial phase of feeling, or thought, or 
belief merely ; but a radical and fundamental act which de- 
termines the character and future course of the soul's life — an 
act in which the soul accepts pardon on God's terms. 

If we analyze this act we shall find that it includes these ele- 
ments — belief, trust, co?nmit?nent. The intellectual element is 
first in order, and conditioning to the others. Faith begins with 
belief ; but does not end with it. It is not mere belief. The 
terms are sometimes used interchangeably. As a philosophic 
technic, they are identical. As a Christian technic, belief is only 
an element of faith, but an essential element. The belief ele- 
ment in faith, most comprehensively, is belief in the merciful- 
ness of God and his willingness to forgive sin. Without this 
there can be no movement of the soul toward God. This form of 
faith may, under the enlightening influence of the Holy Ghost, 
arise in a heathen soul, and under the same helpful influence may 
issue in salvation. But the belief element in Christian faith is 
more than this : it is belief in the mercifulness of God, and his 



106 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

willingness to forgive sin, and in Jesus Christ his only begotten 
Son as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. With this essence of 
truth in the belief there may coalesce more or less of error in all 
minds without so vitiating the belief as to destroy its essential 
value. One believes in the High-Trinitarian doctrine, another 
is tinctured with Sabellianism, another with Arianism, or semi- 
Arianism, or Unitarianism; one interprets according to Calvinism, 
another is Arminian. These are severally phases of intellectual 
and fallible interpretation ; perhaps, or possibly — certainly 
none of them absolutely accurate ; some of them mere logom- 
achy — dispute about words. There may be in minds holding 
any of them a sufficient essence of faith to make it saving. 
Absolute orthodoxy can scarcely be made a condition of salva- 
tion. There is an essence of faith which may be enveloped in 
some error. This must be allowed, or among fallible beings 
the way of salvation, narrow enough, would be made perilously 
strait. While it may be perfectly clear that certain beliefs are 
of that essence, and that certain other beliefs exclude it, it is not 
for us to decide precisely what in all cases the exact form of be- 
lief must be. It is neither wise nor safe for one class of minds 
to attempt to impose its precise forms of thought upon all 
othess ; or to make its precise formulas the standard by which 
eternal destinies are to be determined. It is sufficient to say 
that the belief element in faith is belief in the mercifulness of 
God and his willingness to forgive sin ; and beleif in Jesus 
Christ as the Redeemer and Saviour of men. This element 
cannot be excluded from the faith which saves. 

But no form of belief is saving faith. " The devils believe." 
Possibly among the devils we should find sounder orthodoxy 
as to matters of belief than among the most astute theologians. 
Who knows ! The belief may be the most accurate possible, 
and yet the faith which saves be wanting. The belief element 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 107 

is an act of the mind, simply as mind determining what to it 
seems to be true. There is nothing ethical in it simply as be- 
lief. Belief acquires all of its importance as conditioning an 
ethical act — an act of the affection and will ; and so affecting 
character and conduct. If it stop short at mere belief, it is not 
of the slightest ethical value. 

We have said that faith is conditioned by repentance, and 
that faith to the impenitent is impossible. It is important to ex- 
act accuracy that we now say that the belief — element of faith in 
some degree antedates repentance and conditions it. Without 
belief in God and the immutable ethic of his law there could be 
no conviction of sin ; and without belief in his mercifulness there 
could be no repentance. Thus faith, in the single aspect of belief, 
emerges in the whole process from the beginning to the end of 
Christian experience. It is in its final ethical form, as an act of 
the affection and the will, " called faith of the heart," that it 
is conditioned by repentance, and is made the condition of 
salvation. 

We come now to consider what that final ethical form of 
faith is which is unto salvation. It is most generally called 
" heart trust." That phrase hardly adequately expresses it. It 
leaves out, or at least leaves in too great obscurity, the will ele- 
ment. In matters of mere belief neither the affections nor the 
will have any prominent place, if they have any place at all. 
The intellect merely is active. It is for this reason that the eth- 
ical element is absent. Mere belief is never matter of command, 
and never a ground of moral approbation as partaking of the 
nature of a virtue or grace. But in the final form of faith both 
the affections and the will are active. The soul profoundly 
moved in its sensibilities, moved and attracted by the love of God, 
moved with an affection such as a sinning child feels toward a 
grieved father, moved with contrition, deeply feeling its own 



108 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

grievous wrong and desiring forgiveness, sues for pardon. Upon 
the basis of these emotive states there arises trust. The faith act is 
completed by the soul, thus moved to trust, volitionally commit- 
ting itself to God. It is an act of choice and -free, and an utter 
self-determination to righteousness, in which the soul gives it- 
self to God, and trusts him for forgiveness, and goes over and 
stands with him. It has in it the spirit of obedience — right- 
eousness. The act rests upon the promises and that which un- 
derlies them, the great atonement of Christ, and the feeling in- 
spired by the Holy Ghost, that it may commit itself to divine 
mercv for forgiveness. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 109 



LECTURE 6. 

ELEMENTS OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE CONTINUED. 

"We have now completed the line of experience through which 
the soul passes antecedent to and conditioning of pardon. We 
have seen that they emerge in a rational order, each condition- 
ing that which follows, in such manner that the order cannot 
be reversed or modified, both on mental and moral grounds. 
We have seen that they take their rise from the fact of sin ; 
that they have for their end pardon. We have seen that such 
is the nature of G-od that no one of them could be left out and 
pardon be possible ; that there is a strict harmony between them 
and the demands of an ethical system. We have seen also that 
they accord with the teaching of revelation and with the constitu- 
tion of the spiritual universe. 

The only question that remains to make a complete philosophy 
of them is, Are they adapted to the end of pardon ; that is, do 
they furnish an adequate ground for pardon ? 

To this question we answer in three parts : First, if pardon is to 
be administered at all it must be on some conditions. If man is to 
furnish any of the conditions it is impossible to conceive of any 
others than those mentioned. There remains nothing more that 
he can do. Second,we answer : the conditions that will justify the 
pardoning act God alone can determine ; and he has declared 
that upon these conditions he will administer pardon. Third, 
we answer : complying with these conditions, souls do experi- 
ence pardon. 

We add : if there is any salvation for the race at all, or any 
individuals of it, it must be through pardon, as, if penalty is not 
remitted, it must be executed. This is not an arbitrary, revers- 
ible, statutory arrangement, but a fundamental ethical necessity. 



110 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

"We add further: that it is impossible to conceive of any inter- 
ests of the universe, including sovereign and subjects, suffering 
by the administration of pardon on the conditions placed. 

We now enter upon the examination of another class of ex- 
periences. Those already examined were conditioning to salva- 
tion — or pardon, which is present salvation ; conditions which 
the soul performs, and divine helps thereto. Those experiences 
upon which we now enter are experiences which arise together 
with and after, the realization of salvation. Those were the 
experiences of a soul in its progress from a state of guilt and 
alienation to pardon. These are the experiences of a soul at the 
time and after it has come to God and has received pardon. 
In the former experiences man was more prominent; in these 
experiences now to be examined God is more prominent as 
actor; but throughout God and man are co-factors. In the 
former the prodigal is seen returning to his father ; in these the 
father is seen receiving and reinstating the prodigal. 

Our immediate work will be to state the experience the soul 
has on its initiation to life. Further on we shall deal with its 
experience after it has been initiated ; along the way of its jour- 
neying until it is finally saved. 

Pardon. Following the faith act, and conditioned by it on 
the human side and by the atonement on the divine side, are par- 
don, forgiveness, and regeneration. These three facts are concur- 
rent, and unitedly constitute what is scripturally and theologically 
known as justification. But for a clear understanding it is nec- 
essary to consider these terms separately and so to ascertain the 
exact contents of each. 

The terms pardon and forgiveness are so nearly synonymous 
that they are constantly used as identical. They are not, how- 



PHIL OSOPH Y OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 1 1 1 

ever, perfectly identical ; but they are so cognate that when the 
difference is pointed out it is safe to use them interchangeably 
with the understanding that either term includes the other. 

Pardon, in strictness and as used in the Scriptures, is an ad- 
ministrative act by which the penalty of sin affixed by law is 
remitted, not exacted. 

Forgiveness is a personal act, which includes pardon, but 
goes farther in that it not only includes the remission of pen- 
alty but reinstates the offender in the favor of the offended — 
restores loving relations between them. When pardon is un- 
derstood in this broader sense, as it constantly is, there is no 
use for the added term forgiveness. 

Under the divine government sin is not simply an offense 
against law, exposing the guilty to penalty, but it is an offense 
to God, awakening his personal displeasure against the culprit. 
His relations are personal as well as administrative. Pardon af- 
fects both his feeling and administration with respect to the 
offender when used in the broader sense of forgiveness. By 
forgiveness his displeasure is assuaged and his love restored, as 
well as penalty remitted. The pardoning act brings offender 
and offended into loving relations to each other. Under the 
divine government penalty is never remitted without forgiveness. 

We have said that pardon, in its lowest sense, is the remis- 
sion of penalty. Now let us pause to determine exactly what 
that means. A remitted penalty is a penalty deserved, but not 
inflicted. When the penalty is inflicted pardon is excluded. 
When pardon is extended the infliction of penalty is excluded. 
This is not a mere etvmolo^ical or lexical demand of the terms. 
It is a strict and necessary ethical demand. A sin that is pun- 
ished cannot be pardoned ; and vice versa, a sin that is pardoned 
cannot be punished. The one term excludes the other. Now, if 
this is true, pardoned sin is never, and never can be, punished 



112 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

sin, and punished sin never is, and never can be, pardoned sin ; 
or, more definitely still, sin cannot at the same time be both par- 
doned and punished, nor can it, under a holy administration, be 
neither pardoned nor punished, but must be one or the other. 
This statement is held to be axiomatic, and is postulated as such. 

The effect of the foregoing postulate is to do away with the 
theological fiction of substitutional punishment which has been 
made to serve so important a part in the Calvinistic creed, and 
in the Arminian creed as well, by misinterpretation. The 
fiction is this, as placed in the Calvinistic creed : that by elec- 
tion of sovereign grace a certain number of souls were deeded 
by covenant to Christ, and that for these he made atonement, 
which atonement consisted in his taking upon himself the penalty 
of their sins — that is, received their punishment ; in view of which 
they are graciously pardoned. The fiction involves the contra- 
diction above named ; namely, that the sins of the elect are both 
punished and pardoned. This itself is fatal to it, without tak- 
ing account of its other unethical elements, which are numer- 
ous and some of them, atrocious, but which our limits will 
not permit us to name even. The full discussion will be 
found in the volume on "Atonement in Christ" in Studies in 
Theology. 

The theological fiction as it appears in some Arminian theo- 
rizing, while free from some of the most offensive inclusions 
of the Calvinistic creed, is not entirely free from the fault specifi- 
cally mentioned here. The Arminian theory is often so stated 
as to involve the doctrine of substitutional punishment and 
becomes heir to all its embarrassments, among others the contra- 
diction involved. It seems to be about this : that Christ took 
upon himself the punishment due the sins of the whole world and 
actually suffered it, the satisfaction to divine justice being full 
and complete ; nevertheless, he does not release sinners them- 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 113 

selves from the penalty unless certain conditions are complied 
with, but when the conditions are complied with the sins are 
pardoned. Now, here the same contradiction emerges as in the 
former case, the contradiction of the same sins being both par- 
doned and punished. It escapes the infamy of the doctrine of 
election, but it is heir to the other infamies of punishing the 
innocent for the guilty, and, worse even than Calvinism itself, 
the infamy of demanding conditions before the sinner shall be 
released from obligation to suffer the penalty which has already 
exhausted itself on a substitute, and, by consequence, liability to 
the re-infliction of the full penalty which has been once endured 
by another — worse than Calvinism. 

The whole theory of substitutional punishment as a ground 
either of conditional or unconditional pardon is unethical, con- 
tradictory, and self -subversive. 

Pardon is an administrative act, and as such always neces- 
sarily transpires in time. It is impossible that it should be an 
eternal act, that is, that it should exist from eternity. 

It always and necessarily implies the antecedent existence of 
the sin that is pardoned, and cannot be anticipative of it. 
Pardon of sins, therefore, at any given time, does not imply or 
include the pardon of sins that may occur subsequently, nor 
does it prevent the occurrence of subsequent sins. Sins subse- 
quent to pardon need to be pardoned, or their penalty holds as 
if no preceding pardon for preceding sins had taken place. 
There is no escape from the penal consequences of any sin in 
any other way than through pardon. 

Penalty is eternal if not remitted ; that is, if pardon be not 
extended. The guilt of sin does not expire, by lapse of time, 
at the end of a given amount of penalty. Forgiveness is 



114 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

necessary to its termination. Once guilty, the soul must per- 
manently remain guilty, unless forgiveness supervenes to 
remove the guilt. ISTo amount of suffering can purge it. It 
cannot purge itself. The act which purges it must emanate 
from the being against whom it is committed. There is no 
end to its demerit except as forgiveness ends it. The penalty 
is death, and death is eternal, if not revoked. 

Pardon is God's own administrative act, and must always be 
in accordance with his infinite holiness. Even God has no 
power either to withhold or administer pardon capriciously or 
arbitrarily or unethically, that is, to the infringement of the 
holiness of his nature. 

Pardon is an act of the divine sovereign toward the sinning 
subject which releases the subject from the obligation to suffer 
the penalty due his sin and releases the sovereign from the 
obligation to inflict penalty. It is thus seen that the pardon 
act affects both the sovereign and the subject. The act 
involves the ethical character of the sovereign, and the state of 
the subject and his relations to law and administration. It is 
impossible that God should maintain his character of a just 
and holy, or even wise and merciful, sovereign, if he exercised 
the pardoning power or prerogative arbitrarily or without 
respect to conditions. That would be to abrogate law, or 
immorally, unethically, to override it. It would be an act of 
sovereignty which would unhinge the moral system. It is an 
absolute necessity that there should be conditions precedent 
and concurrent. 

Nothing is more certain, therefore, than that God, as a holy 
sovereign, can neither remit penalty nor restore to favor 
without conditions which show that he is not indifferent to sin. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 115 

It is worth while to say further that while the pardon act 
must be conditioned, it must also, to be of any avail, be 
attended with a subjective change in the recipient. Mere 
sovereign forgiveness which left the sinner a sinner still 
would be of no benefit to the recipient, and would be ruinous 
to the character of the sovereign and to the interests of the 
universe. 



How does pardon become matter of experience f Pardon, 
as we have seen, is an administrative and a personal act of 
God. How does pardon become matter of experience to 
man ? It is impossible that the soul should be conscious of an 
act of God in the same way as it is conscious of its own acts or 
state. Consciousness cannot transcend the subject. It is 
strictly limited to subjective experience ; but the pardoning act 
is not a subjective experience, but it is the act of another. 
How, then, can the fact of pardon become matter of experi- 
ence I And what precisely is the experience ? 

To this question there can be but one answer : " The soul 
feels the assurance that it is pardoned." The feeling is its 
experience. The act of pardon transcends experience, but the 
feeling of pardon is matter of experience. The act God per- 
forms ; the responsive assurance the soul feels. That there is 
a divine witnessing in the soul which produces the expe- 
rience of assurance of the pardoning act is the testimony of 
God himself. With the forgiveness he creates the con- 
sciousness of it by causing the soul to feel the joy of it. 
The feeling of guilt is removed, and the feeling of pardon 
is imparted ; but, as the act of pardon takes place in the 
divine mind, all the experience the soul can have of it is the 
feeling that it has been done, and the concomitant emotions 
attending it. 



116 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

Concurrently with pardon and forgiveness, which, as we 
have seen, is an administrative act of God, releasing the soul 
from guilt, that is, the obligation to punishment, and releasing 
God from the obligation to inflict punishment ; and restoring 
the soul to favor, an act witnessed to the soul by God himself, 
is a work done in the soul, generally designated by the term 
regeneration, and variously characterized in the Scriptures as 
"being born again," "created anew in Christ Jesus,'' 
" cleansed," " quickened," " renewed," and other descriptive 
phrases of similar import. 

What is regeneration f Perhaps there is no subject-matter of 
experience about which there has been more confused thinking 
than that described by these terms. Uncritical and unscientific 
ignorance has woven a garb of sensuousness about them. Creed 
theologizers have added to the confusion. The imagination has 
been left to run wild and invest them with all sorts of meaning. 
Without doubt the case is one of real difficulty. On two points 
all agree : First, that regeneration is a work wrought in the soul ; 
second, that God is the agent. There is disagreement on three 
points : First, as to the time-relation of the act to other parts 
of the experience, Calvinistic theologians placing it at the 
initiation, before faith and pardon, Arminians placing it subse- 
quent to faith and concurrently with pardon ; second, there is 
difference as to the question whether it is a conditioned act, or 
one wrought by pure sovereignty without conditions ; third, 
there is difference as to precisely what is done. The first and 
second of these points are theological questions upon the 
polemics of which I cannot enlarge. 

The third point is that which my thesis requires me to 
handle. The philosophy of the experience demands that the 
experience should be determined. I postulate that, as matter 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 117 

of experience, it is concurrent with pardon ; is subsequent to 
faith and conditioned on the existence of faith — that it is syn- 
ergistic and not monergistic. 

To determine what regeneration is, it is necessary to recur to 
the subject of pardon. We have said that pardon is an admin- 
istrative act of God which relates to the guilt of the soul, and 
which cancels guilt. Upon this point, I believe, there is per- 
fect agreement. 

Iso w, the first point I make is this : that pardon disposes of 
the question of guilt. If, with the Calvinist, we make guilt 
to include demerit for original sin, so called, as well as all per- 
sonal sins, then pardon purges from the guilt both of original 
sin and of all personal sins. Or, if we take the Arminian view, 
that guilt is only predicable of personal sins, then pardon purges 
from the guilt of personal sins. In cither case pardon disposes 
of the whole question of guilt. When sin is pardoned there 
is no remaining guilt. I attach great importance to this point, 
and therefore particularly emphasize it. 

The next point I make is this : if pardon is an administrative 
act, which finally and completely disposes of guilt, then regen- 
eration has nothing to do with guilt. It docs not at all deal 
with the question of guilt or in any way refer to it — pardon 
lias extinguished it; it is non est. 

"What, then, is the function of regeneration \ 

We make the point that regeneration has to do with the soul 
itself — the condition and state of its powers. All the terms 
descriptive of it are in harmony with this. 

The consideration of this point will raise two inquiries : 
First, What is the condition of the soul prior to regeneration? 
Second, What is effected by regeneration ? 

On the first point, " What is the condition of the soul prior 



118 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

to regeneration ? " we affirm in general terms that it is not in a 
normal condition — is not as it was originally constituted. This 
abnormalcy, we affirm, is not peculiar to some souls, but is com- 
mon to all souls; includes the entire race. 

The original constitution of the soul, as lias been shown, was 
that it was invested with double relations, one to the sensuous, 
the other to the supersensuous, or spiritual world. The equa- 
tion of its powers was such that it was able to decide for itself 
whether it would determine itself to the sensuous or supersensu- 
ous. Its law was that it should determine itself to the spiritual ; 
that is, that the spiritual should dominate; that in all things 
the sensuous life should be subject to the spiritual — should be 
governed and regulated by it. Its righteousness was made to 
depend upon its self-determined, that is, its free conformity to 
this divine constitution. The statute under which it was 
placed recognized, and was based npon, this divine constitution, 
and served as a test whether it would conform to it; that is, 
whether the spiritual or sensuous should dominate it — whether 
the animal or divine should have the rule. 

The free soul revolutionized itself — renounced the order es- 
tablished for it; put the reins of government in the hands of 
the sensuous and reduced the spirit to subjection ; put the beast 
upon the throne, and made the angel serve in chains. 

This was an act of rebellion and involved guilt. These re- 
sults followed : (1) God's favor was lost — guilt always and 
necessarily involves that ; (2) the helpfulness of his love and 
approving presence with the soul was withdrawn. (3) The equa- 
tion of the soul's powers was lost. The divine constitution 
under which it was created was shattered. The will and the 
affections were enslaved and bound to the sensual. The soul 
was marred, and self-determined to abnormalcy. 

You will observe that even in this case abnormalcy was effect 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 119 

of guilt, not ground of it ; not itself guilt but a condition of the 
soul superinduced by sin — and a condition from which it can 
never recover itself, and from which it can never be recovered 
w r hile guilt exists, or until guilt is removed. 

Now I affirm that this effect of abnormalcy which resnlted 
from Adam's sin, and which consisted in the loss of the equa- 
tion of his powers whereby he was able to determine himself 
to righteousness, and which sensualized his entire nature, de- 
scends by heredity to his posterity. The effect, observe. Abnor- 
malcy of soul is a disease which taints us all — a moral leprosy. 
When we reach moral consciousness sensuality is found already 
regnant in our affections and will by heredity. 

Does it involve us in guilt \ I affirm, no ; it is ethically im- 
possible. It is impossible there should be guilt where there 
has been no action of the subject. Therefore I affirm that it 
is a case which the administrative act of pardon does not reach 
at all. 

The point I now make is this : the pardon, which as we 
have seen is an administrative act, by which the soul is entirely 
purged of guilt, does not at all affect the abnormalcy of nature 
into which the soul had fallen and which has acquired addi- 
tional strength by indulgence. But, then, what advantage 
could pardon be to it if it were still left under the dominion 
of sensuality — spiritually dead ? None whatever. 

This question points exactly to our remaining want, for 
which regeneration provides, and so indicates the function of 
regeneration and also determines what it is. 

Concurrently with pardon, God, in the person of the Holy 
Ghost, returns to and takes up his loving and helpful abode in the 
soul from which guilt expelled him, and by his presence and 
agency he restores the lost equation — enables the soul to right- 
eousness, rebuilds the shattered constitution, reduces usurpers 



120 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

to subjection, and reinstates the rightful sovereign. This is re- 
generation. The soul by the act is made normal. Sensuosity 
is not destroyed, for it belonged to the original constitution of 
the soul, but it is put in subjection. It is not necessary to as- 
sume that the reconstruction replaces tliG soul in its original 
condition. That is certainly not true, and it is impossible it 
should be true. It is a soul that has had a taste of sin ; that is" 
habited to the long-undisputed dominion of sense ; that is still 
sphered in environments of evil ; that is dwarfed in its facul- 
ties ; whose lusts by indulgence have grown masterful. It is 
impossible to change these facts. The evil effects are not and 
cannot be eradicated by any agency at once. But this is what 
has happened : God has so revealed himself to the soul, and in 
the soul, that its long-alienated and debauched affections now 
return to him, and its weakened and wayward will has been 
empowered to give in its allegiance to him. The lost equation 
of its powers is restored. 

This is not a dry, arid change. It is a spring in the desert ; 
it is the shout of freedom when the gyves and chains are broken ; 
it is life from the dead ; it is the dawn of heaven in the dun- 
geon of a despairing soul — the bridegroom, with his glorious 
train, lighting up the long-deserted chambers of his future home. 

How is regeneration effected ? The general answer to this 
question is not difficult. It is by the operation of the Holy 
Spirit in the soul of man conditioned by the posture of the 
soul. I emj)hasize conditioned by the posture of the soul. An 
impenitent soul cannot be regenerated. The effect, therefore, 
is not wholly monergistic. God works regeneration only when 
the soul is in condition to be the recipient. This fact deter- 
mines the position which regeneration holds in the line of ex- 
periences by which the soul becomes Christian. It is the last 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 121 

in the line. Its conditioning antecedents are in a fixed order : 
conviction of sin, repentance, faith, forgiveness ; the last in the 
line — that is, forgiveness — being concurrent with but logically 
precedent to regeneration. This invariable order is significant. 
It points to a law of sequence, each part having a relation to 
every other part determined by the constitution of the mind 
and fundamental ethics of the divine administration — the laws 
of the spiritual w^orld. 

How under these fundamental laws the Spirit operates re- 
generation in the soul is not given to us to know. The effect 
is a reconstruction of the soul — a re-adjustment of the reigning 
powers in it — a reversal of what by sin had become the dominant 
law of its life. Is the revolution effected by a direct act of the 
divine will, a direct energizing, or by instrumentality of truth 
divinely communicated? Probably both. We do know that 
truth is a mighty instrument for accomplishing spiritual re- 
sults. We do know that the word of God is embodied power 
of God, that he communicates his saving energy through the 
word ; but we do not know but that in regenerating the soul 
there is also a direct energizing in the intellect, the affections, 
and the will — a lifting, inspiring, recreative energy. The ef- 
fect produced points to such immediate agency, and we see not 
how to account for it in any other way. 

The state arrived at by the line of experiences which culmi- 
nate in regeneration is called in the Bible, and in theological 
writings, justification. If I were set to write a theological dis- 
quisition it would be necessary that I should enter a wide field 
of polemics here ; but this is not what my thesis demands. 
My work is to deal simply with an experience. 

Does the term justification represent any thing in actual ex- 
perience beyond what emerges in pardon and regeneration ? 
We think, no. It is a biblical and theological technic which 



122 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN' EXPERIENCE. 

describes, not an experience beyond or different from forgive- 
ness and regeneration, but how God views the forgiven and 
regenerate soul and what will be his treatment of it. In gen- 
eral terms it signifies that a forgiven and regenerated soul 
stands in the divine thought and feeling, and will be treated as 
if it had never sinned, as if its righteousness had never been 
fractured. Possibly the deepest analysis of Christian con- 
sciousness would discover an experience precisely answering to 
that fact ; but, if so, it would be found to run so close to the 
consciousness of pardon and the feeling of adoption as to be 
scarcely differentiable. 

In fact the state reached is fitly described by the term justi- 
fication as describing how the forgiven soul stands related to God. 
The term forgiveness and the experience of forgiveness implies 
all that ; but we cannot further enter the theological polemic. 

Is the forgiven soul and the regenerate soul thereby made 
actually righteous? Here, again, opens a wide polemic upon 
which we cannot enter at large. One answers yes ; it is 
righteous, that is, its faith is counted for righteousness. An- 
other answers yes ; it is righteous, but not in itself. It is 
made righteous by having Christ's righteousness imputed to it. 
I answer, if righteousness means absolutely purged of guilt, 
then the pardoned soul is righteous — for pardon removes guilt. 
If, more than that, righteousness means a determination of 
the affections and the will to righteousness, a fixed desire to be 
righteous, and a ruling purpose of the mind to be righteous, and 
a state in which the soul does not of knowledge and intent com- 
mit sin, then again yes. But if righteousness means flawless- 
ness of act as compared with a perfect law, or absolute perfection 
as to nature, then, no. 

God himself designates all forgiven and saved souls as right- 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 123 

eous. The righteousness of any man can only be relative. 
Only the infinite is' absolutely righteous. Righteousness to 
any finite being means loyalty of the will to what is known or 
believed to be right — it is the spirit of righteousness. This 
God inspires in every truly regenerate heart. In its deepest 
import it is the righteousness of faith. Forgiven men, regen- 
erated by the Holy Ghost, are judged and justified by their 
faith and by the works of faith. No faith is or can be counted 
for righteousness which contains not in it the spirit of right- 
eousness — that is, which does not determine the soul to the 
obedience of the law of righteousness and brings not forth the 
fruits of righteousness. 

There could be no greater mistake than to suppose that the 
justification which is by faith is the justification of a soul in 
which the spirit of righteousness is not implanted, or that God 
accounts a soul righteous either on account of faith or on ac- 
count of the imputation to it of the righteousness of another, 
when in itself there is found the spirit of unrighteousness. 
That which is matter of experience to the soul in its justifica- 
tion is that it loves righteousness and loyally purposes as nearly 
as possible to fulfill all righteousness. Such a soul God ac- 
counts just, and will deal with it as if it had never sinned when 
he comes to judge it at the last day. 

The justification which is concomitant with forgiveness and re- 
generation means not some unethical declaration of a righteous- 
ness which does not exist, but the acknowledgment of that which 
does exist but which the soul has obtained through faith. The 
precise facts in the case are these : the soul was an unrighteous 
soul ; when it becomes justified it does not mean that it is justi- 
fied in its former unrighteousness — declared righteous when it is 
not righteous — for any reason, for there could be no reason in. 
such a contradiction. But it means this, rather : that it has been 



124 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

purged of its unrighteousness by forgiveness and lias been made 
righteous by regeneration ; and this was ' brought about by a 
series of experiences, the last of which was regeneration made 
possible by the atonement through faith. Therefore by faith 
it is treated as righteous — its past unrighteousness being blotted 
out, and its will being brought under the law of righteousness. 

When it is said that faith is imputed for righteousness it can- 
not be meant that the soul is void of righteousness, and that faith 
answers to all the obligations of righteousness ; bat it means 
this, rather: that faith which unites the soul to Christ, securing 
forgiveness for past sin, secures also the allegiance of the soul 
to him which is actual righteousness. The righteousness in- 
wrought is through faith ; but it is a real principle of right- 
eousness, by which the soul becomes righteous. When it is 
said that the soul is righteous in Christ's righteousness it is 
not to be understood that Christ's righteousness is made 
over to us, so that, unrighteous in ourselves, we are made right- 
eous in his righteousness ; but this, rather : our righteousness 
is derived from Christ in that it is through him that we 
attain unto it. 

When the soul has been forgiven it is purged of past sin. 
By forgiveness its guilt is removed — it has ceased to be 
guilty ; that is negative righteousness. When the soul is re- 
generated — that is, born of God — not only is sin removed, 
but the principle of righteousness is implanted in it; that is 
positive righteousness. By the conjoint process the soul is 
made righteous. 

The regenerate soul is adopted of God. This is matter of 
experience. As in the case of pardon, adoption is a divine act. 
God puts the forgiven and regenerate soul among his children 
and constitutes it a child and an heir. The experience of the soul 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 125 

is a consciousness of affiliation — a home feeling in the house- 
hold of faith. There is no more pronounced fact of experience 
than this. The .A J5a- father is put in the heart of the new-born 
child. The affiliated soul spontaneously utters it — feels it — 
knows itself no longer to be an alien and stranger, but a child. 
Whatever its past sin, however consciously unworthy, the sense 
of kinship now thrills it. It is at home under the family roof- 
tree. It has left its swineherd life and rags, and wears the family 
insignia. It sits at the family table and shares in the family joy. 
This is a strange fact. But yesterday this soul was an alien and 
outcast. It knew of God only as a name ; possibly it doubted his 
existence ; it thought of him even with dismay ; it wanted noth- 
ing to do with him ; if it could it would have annihilated him ; his 
terrors made it afraid ; it ran from his approach ; its greatest 
dread was the idea that some day it would have to meet him ; 
it detested the family name ! Who can explain it ? To-day it 
rushes to his arms ; thrills with the mention of his name; longs 
for him " as they that watch for the morning." Now it is no 
longer an alien and stranger from God ; but it is a, pilgrim and 
stranger on the earth. That which was its only home is now no 
home for it. Heavenly attractions have caught it and heavenly 
voices call it. Again I say there is no more pronounced ex- 
perience than this ; and there is no accounting for it but on the 
theory that God has put himself into loving relations with the 
soul and created in it a feeling of affiliation. 

All these several facts are facts attested in its consciousness 
by the Holy Spirit — the renewing and regenerating agent. 
It is a great and radical experience, and it carries with it so long 
as the soul is loyal to it— that is, so long as it remains a fact — the 
absolute and perfect title to eternal life, and guarantees the ac- 
complishment of whatever further experience is necessary to 



126 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

bring it to the final possession of the eternal life to which by 
its adoption it has become heir. While it remains there is no 
flaw in the title and nothing can improve the title. This I as- 
sert with great and confident emphasis. The foregoing discus- 
sions we think clearly point out the process through which the 
soul passes in becoming Christian, and indicate the grounds 
and significance of each successive stage of the process. They 
show that to become Christian there is a genuine subjective ex- 
perience. They clearly show God's method in saving men. 
They show what salvation is — that is, that it is deliverance from 
the incurred penalties of sin ; but, more radically than that, that it 
is a subjective change wrought in the character of the soul it- 
self, in the absence of which salvation in the inferior sense is im- 
possible. They point out a sufficient reason for the whole process 
and each distinct stage of it. They show the relations of parts 
of the experience. They demonstrate that the entire process 
is strictly ethical, and in no respect artificial, mechanical, or 
whimsical, or arbitrary — that they are radical, and lie at the 
roots of the ethical well-being of the universe. They are con- 
sistent with righteousness in both of its essential parts — eternal 
justice and eternal love. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 127 



LECTURE VII. 
SOME PHASES OF EXPERIENCE SUBSEQUENT TO REGENERATION. 

We have seen in the lectures preceding God's method in re- 
covering the soul of man from a state of guilt to a state of 
righteousness ; it remains that we consider his further methods 
with it, preparatory to its admission to the everlasting blessed- 
ness to which, by its recovery from guilt and re-creation in 
righteousness, it has become heir prospective. 

We attach importance to the phrase "heir prospective." By 
it we do not mean simply an heir whose accession to the in- 
heritance is in the future, but an heir whose final accession to 
the inheritance is still further conditioned ; an heir who has ob- 
tained a title if he do not forfeit it by future unfaithfulness, 
but a title which may be forfeited. 

This leads to the further statement, that nothing experienced 
by the soul in its forgiveness and regeneration guarantees its 
final attainment to everlasting life. The doctrine of final per- 
severance is an unethical fiction. Probation does not terminate 
with regeneration ; or rather regeneration does not terminate 
probation. We do not here enter upon the polemics of this 
statement, but proceed upon the postulatum. 

The object of continued probation may be stated as triplex ; 
first, still further to test the soul by subjecting it to trial and 
temptation that it may furnish the proof that its determination to 
righteousness is final — one which it will not reverse under any 
exigencies of its existence ; and that, by the trial, the graces 
implanted in its regenerate life may have opportunity to grow 
in strength and beauty until they come to ripeness, robustness 
of manhood stature. No trial — no strength. 



128 miLOSOPIIY OF CHRISTIAN- EXPERIENCE. 

The second object of continued probation is that the regenerate 
soul may have opportunity to witness to the power of the grace 
of God to save from sin, and to keep the soul under all stress of 
trial and temptation in peace and assurance of faith; a witness 
not with the tongue only, or chiefly, but by a life well ordered 
and redolent of divine virtues ; that it may shine as a light in 
the surrounding darkness of sin and unrigheousness, and by its 
shining light up the path to other pilgrims. 

The third object of continued probation is that it may have 
the opportunity to become a co-worker with Christ — suffering 
and sacrificing with him, and devoting its life in all active and 
earnest labors for the world's salvation to which he devoted his 
life, even unto death. 

All of which is summed up in the general statement that 
the object of continued probation is that the soul may attain to 
fixedness of character by its own free choice ; that it may be 
perfected and forever established in holiness ; that, rooted and 
grounded in faith, which is another name for loyalty, it may be 
prepared for all the unknown incidents and exigencies of its 
immortal existence, and be thoroughly fitted for " the inheritance 
of the saints in light" — the eternal companionship of God and 
the participation of his glory. 

The further experiences of the soul after regeneration must 
be interpreted from the ends here indicated, and the philosophy 
of them will be found in their adaptation to the ends which 
they serve. 

It is pefectly obvious that the objects proposed by prolonged 
probation are such as are vital to the soul itself, and such as 
are vital to the interests of the kingdom of God upon the earth. 
The soul itself needs the prolonged probation and cannot be 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 129 

brought to its final destiny without it ; and the divine kingdom 
needs it and cannot be built without it. It is conceivable that 
a soul just purged of guilt and regenerated by the Holy Ghost 
might be instantaneously transferred to heaven, and it is not 
impossible that instances of the kind have occurred, but it is 
not God's ordinary method of procedure, and for the reasons 
above named. 

"Were it the ordinary method there could be no Church of 
God upon earth, and the means of carrying forward the divine 
kingdom, so far as is apparent, could not exist. God employs 
not merely the atonement, and the gospel of salvation and the 
agency of the Holy Ghost, but also regenerated men, in the sal- 
vation of men. Were it his method to remove regenerate 
men immediately on their regeneration there would then be no 
salt in the earth — there would be no regenerate men to remove. 

Being men, it is impossible that they should be left here 
among men and not themselves be still on probation. Thus 
the divine economy with relation to the race involves probation 
prolonged, for a period longer or shorter as seen best by infinite 
wisdom and grace, after the grace of life has been imparted to 
the soul. These facts explain the divine economy for the con- 
tinued probation of Christian souls. Of the fact there is no 
question. The existence of Christians on the earth is proof of it. 

It is implied in the statement above that souls are not per- 
fected in receiving the grace of forgiveness and regeneration ; 
that, great as are the benefits bestowed in that experience, there 
are still remaining experiences to be wrought out in it during 
its prolonged probation, as well as ends to be accomplished by 
it. This is a point around which much needless confusion has 
grown. It needs careful statement. 

Keeping in mind the fact that we are not essaying a theo- 
logical or creed statement of Christian experience, but simply 



130 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

a statement of the facts, and a rational explanation of them, as 
of any other spiritual phenomena, we are ready to proceed. 

Our present inquiry is as to the phenomena which emerge in 
experience, during prolonged probation, subsequent to the im- 
planting of the divine life in the soul. It will help us in our 
further inquiries if we cast about for a moment to determine 
the exact status we have reached. This will furnish the data 
for further progress. 

We have before us by supposition a human soul that has just 
become the recipient of forgiveness and the implanting in it of 
the divine life by the Holy Ghost. In preceding investiga- 
tions we traced the process by which the soul was brought into 
its present state, and determined the meaning of the terms 
forgiveness and regeneration, which describe its present state. 
It is not necessary that we refer to these matters again. Our 
present inquiry has to do with the circumstances in which it 
finds itself now placed. The circumstances will be influential 
in determining its future experience, and must be noted in order 
to explain them. 

The general fact is, that though the soul has been, by its 
recent experience, naturalized in the divine kingdom, so as to 
become a citizen and prospective heir of all the emoluments of 
citizenship, it is not yet in heaven. 

The particular facts are : First, it is the same soul it was prior 
to its naturalization. It is important that we should emphasize 
this. It is not another soul. Nothing has been added to its 
prior self-essence, and nothing has been removed from its prior 
self-essence. All its old faculties and susceptibilities remain 
and no new ones have been added. In these respects it does 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 131 

i 
not differ from its former self. The change that has taken 

place in it is simply a change as to the objects of its affections 
and the determinations of its will. These changes change its 
ethical quality and its relations. In these respects and in no 
other it is a new soul. The change is a radical change — a com- 
plete revolution; but it is one of ethical quality and rela- 
tions, not of substance. It is the same soul that carries itself 
over into the new experience. There is an identity of the soul 
which holds from the dawn of existence to utmost immortality. 
There is an ethical quality of the soul determined by its volun- 
tary relations to its law, which may vary from deepest guilt of 
sin to highest perfection of holiness, and which may at any 
time during probation change, either in degree or radically. 
This soul standing before us as just forgiven and regenerated 
has become ethically different from its former self — transformed. 
To prevent misapprehension of the phrase, " There is an ethical 
quality of the soul determined by its volitional relations to its 
law, which may vary from deepest guilt to highest holiness," I 
add that the soul cannot by mere volition change itself from a 
quality of guilt to a quality of holiness, though it may change 
itself from a quality of holiness to a quality of guilt. Only 
God can purge the soul of guilt ; only God can implant holi- 
ness ; but God can do neither of these without the free coaction 
of the human will ; and that which gives ethical quality to the 
soul is found in its own act of will. We do not enter upon 
the polemic involved. The point we desire to hold distinctly 
before your minds is this : That the soul newly forgiven and 
regenerated is the identical soul that, prior to that, was guilty, 
and dead in trespasses and in sins. 

It ought to be added that it is not only the same soul, de- 
livered from former guilt, with a new ideal born within it and 



182 rHILO SOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE, 

a new principle of life implanted — that is, a new governing 
motive and a new energizing toward righteousness — but, further, 
that it is a soul open to the same influences of evil which formerly 
prevailed with it and, additionally, still affected by the power of 
early dominant habit of evil. These are undoubted facts ; and 
must be taken note of in accounting for its future experiences. 
But yet, more than that, it must be taken into the account that 
it is a soul whose knowledge is limited ; whose intelligence is 
small ; whose natural temper is irascible ; whose will is weak ; 
whose conscience is often warped by error — simply the soul of 
a man of common mold — not the spirit of an angel. 

It should still be further added that it is a soul that has been 
maimed by sin ; whose tone lias been lowered by familiarity 
with vice ; many times a soul that has been the prey of unbri- 
dled appetites and debauched by gross immoralities, until its 
conscience has become clouded and its ethical ideas confused ; 
in which long-continued habits of evil — evils of thought, evils 
of desire, evils of feeling, evils of practice — have had undis- 
puted sway. Who can measure the power of habit ? Who can 
measure the power of indulged appetite \ Stronger than withes 
and gyves of iron. To understand the after history of this soul 
into which a new constructive life has been introduced all these 
things must be taken into the account. They cannot fail to 
affect and color its future experience. The new constructive 
life has to contend with all these subjective conditions. It must 
meet and master these mighty forces. It must reduce this 
anarchy to order. Out of these ruins of sin it must rear a 
shapely temple of righteousness. 

I note yet further that in this newly regenerate soul there is 
still remaining a life toward the flesh and toward the world. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 133 

The new life that has come to it has not wholly destroyed its 
old life, and never will while it remains in the body and on 
earth. The old life of sin has been removed and the new life 
of righteousness has been implanted; but the soul lias a life 
toward the flesh and toward the world which is of its original 
constitution, and is in no sense sinful in itself. Whatever be- 
longs to the original constitution of the soul is of divine origin 
and accords with the divine will. It is abuse which constitutes 
sin. Any abnormalcy which results from sin creates a demand 
for cure. The tendencies to the flesh and the world in the un- 
regenerate soul are excessive and unregulated and dominant, and 
show soul-depravity. The new-born regenerate life does not 
remove the tendency, but regulates it and brings it under the 
law of righteousness. 

Once more, and more explicitly, this regenerate soul is still a 
temptable soul ; with the perilous power to yield to temptation. 
Every avenue of evil is left open to it. Every power of evil 
may assail it. Any moment it may yield. 

There is another point which I think it important to men- 
tion here; it is this: any ethical state of any finite being 
undergoing probation is for the present moment only. The 
state of justification, or, as Bushnell very properly calls it, the 
righteousing, upon which a soul enters by forgiveness and 
regeneration, is momentary, and if it abides it must be moment 
by moment. This arises from the fact that we ourselves exist 
moment by moment, and never are except as we are in the 
passing moment. Our righteousness, therefore, must be re-af- 
firmed every moment. As our righteousness is by faith at first, 
so it continues to be by faith. For our righteousness to abide 
faith must be a continuous act. It is for this reason that the 



134 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN' EXPERIENCE. 

righteous are said to live by faith. Faitli is the well spring of 
their righteousness ; cut off the fountain and the stream dries 
up. We are not made righteous once for all, but we must be 
renewed in righteousness continuously. 

This I affirm, and deem it an important point. The ethical 
and spiritual state of any soul is not determined by what it 
was, but by what it is at the sharper than a needle point called 
"now." If maintained, and carried forward, it must be by con- 
secutive re-affirmation both on God's part and the soul's part. 
There is and can be no necessary connection between the past 
and the present, or between the present and the to-morrow of 
the soul's ethical state. The soul carries its own existence 
through all the passing nows, and each now will come into, the 
judgment. Pardon in any now carries with it pardon for 
every antecedent now. If from any moment when it is par- 
doned the soul remains absolutely loyal, and its faith be constant 
and perfect, from that moment it is a sinless soul, each now 
from the moment of pardon having been without sin. But this 
is an experience to which, it is safe to affirm, but few souls of 
men ever attain in this life. 

The second fact I deem it important to note, in order 
to the explanation of subsequent experiences, is, the soul, 
new-born, is left to reside in its old body unchanged. 
There is not a particle of change effected in the body by the 
regeneration of the soul. All the change is wrought in the 
soul itself. "No ethical quality is predicable of the body or 
any thing that the body does or feels. The ethic is in the 
soul, but the ethic of the soul is in many ways affected by 
its relations to the body. The body must be taken into the 
account in explaining spiritual experiences, and it is not, there- 
fore, without significance that the soul, after regeneration, is 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 135 

left with its old companion, the body, unchanged. The state 
of the body affects the state of the soul. 

The third point I note is this : the soul after its regeneration 
is left in the same world in which it lived before. By the 
same world we do not mean simply the same earthly habitation, 
but the same environments of all kinds. It is not separated, 
and cannot be, from men and institutions and pursuits which 
pertain to the earth, or from the contact and natural power of 
association, example, prevalent ideas, and practices of its fel- 
lows. It is left here to live the common life of humanity. To 
escape the contact of evil, it is not permitted to retire from the 
world and live the life of a recluse or hermit. Xo provision 
of this kind is made for the protection of its new born sanctity. 
It must go down into the arena and fight with the beasts. ]^ot 
even the devils are kept aloof from it. 

The fourth point I note is, this new-born soul, at the thresh- 
old of its new life, is beleaguered by malign and hostile forces 
interested to destroy its new life — to strangle it in its birth. 
It has not simply to encounter the difficulty of reconstructing 
character under the adverse influences of its own subjective evil 
habits and those which spring from the physical nature in which 
it is incarcerated, and from the current of the world, which sets 
against it, but must contend with organized powers of evil com- 
bined against all righteousness. I do not enter the polemic of 
a personal devil, or of Milton's dream of mighty hosts "who 
throng the air and darken heaven." Let those who can doubt. 
Whether or not there are unincarnate emissaries of evil, none 
can question that there is an incarnate kingdom of evil, intent 
on the ruin of souls and scheming the destruction of all right- 
eousness. 



186 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

I note, as a fifth fact, that the regenerate soul is still held 
strictly under the law of righteousness. The grace which, 
through the atonement and by faith, has secured to it forgive- 
ness for sins that are past does not modify or change its rela- 
tions to immutable ethical law. There is no place for antinomian- 
ism in the scheme of human salvation. To its utmost demand 
the law is forever binding upon the forgiven as much as upon 
the un forgiven soul. The pardon act is retrospective and is 
not a release from obligation for the future. I emphasize this 
fact also, as one of great importance, and which must be taken 
into the account in rendering a philosophy of the experience 
in prolonged probation of a regenerated soul. The new filial 
relation that has come to it does not release it from or in any 
way diminish its obligations to the law of righteousness. That 
law holds over it with unabated force. It must do the will of 
God, resisting all evil and fulfilling all righteousness. Nothing 
either in the provisions of the atonement or in its forgiveness 
of past sins removes from it an iota of its obligations to this 
law. It is matter of experience that every regenerate soul feels 
this obligation. It is an ethical necessity that it should be so ; 
otherwise the atonement, which was made for life, would work 
death, and forgiveness and regeneration would work all manner 
of unrighteousness. It is impossible that any thing God docs 
for the soul should emancipate it from the obligations of right- 
eousness without introducing anarchy into the moral system. 
He may, as we have seen, on conditions which conserve right- 
eousness, forgive, and only on such conditions ; but he has no 
power to release a moral being from the obligation without 
himself thereby becoming the patron of unrighteousness, and 
so vitiating his own holiness. Every spirit in the universe 
must forever be answerable to that law, and the throne of eter- 
nal holiness must forever preserve and enforce that law in full 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 137 

and unabated vigor. The safety of the moral system depends 
on this principle. Sap it and the moral system falls into 
anarchy. The law of God marks out a narrow path, and the 
grace of God does not widen it. 

The sixth fact which I deem it important to state is, there is 
a divine kingdom, organ ized of God, established in the earth, 
and composed of regenerate souls. Of this kingdom, by its 
regeneration, the new-born soul has now become a member. 
It has its duties, its helps, and its fellowships — all of which are 
for him. It has its Bible for his guide, its God-ordained min- 
ister for his instruction and shepherding, its Sabbath for his rest 
and worship, its sacraments for his observance, its appointed 
services for his comfort and upbuilding in faith, its fellowship 
meetings for mutual prayer and experience, its organized plans 
of Christian work for his sympathy and co-operation. It is his 
spiritual home ; the birthplace of his soul. Its members are his 
brothers and sisters. Wherever he goes in all the earth this 
household of faith has an open door for him. But it does not 
exist for his delectation alone. It has no provision for drones. 
It opens opportunity for useful work to each of its members 
and imposes obligations upon them. It demands purity, 
loyalty, earnestness, and dilligence. 

It is manifest that the manner in which this new-born soul 
shall deport itself in the house of God, the use it shall make of 
it, its improvement of its privileges, its fidelity to its obliga- 
tions, will determine what its experience will be. 

I notice a further and final fact, going into the status reached 
by regeneration, which must be taken into the account in 
explaining the future experiences of this just- forgiven and 
regenerated soul ; that further fact is, it is a soul in which God 



138 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

has not only wrought a work, but in which God is deeply inter- 
ested, and in which he has taken up his residence. It is not a 
soul left to itself to fight its own battles. Its implanted life is 
divine. "Were it dissevered from its source it would perish in 
a day. All the powers of righteousness are in God and from 
God. Separated from the fountain, it is safe to say, no angel 
could stand, much less the soul of man, weakened in all its 
powers and beleaguered with evil. We emphasize it, therefore, 
as matter of importance to be taken into the account, that God 
is with and in his new-born child, and all his almighty power is 
guaranteed for his support, if he will. 

We attach importance to the phrase, if he will. It is a free 
soul, which, while it has no power, left to itself, to overcome 
evil, has power to avail itself of Almighty power or to dissever 
itself. But that which I wish to emphasize is that it has God 
with it, and may command his help at any moment. This is 
its refuge, into which it may run and hide, and within whose 
cover it is safe. This, I affirm, is matter of experience, not 
mere doctrine or theory. It pertains to the philosophy of pro- 
bationary history that it should be recognized. Without it no 
soul could escape from the dominion of sin, and work its way 
through an earthly life to everlasting blessedness. Without it 
there could be no justification of God in placing man in his 
earthly environments. Without it probation would be an 
empty name — a tragedy of farce. 

Now, with these facts before us we are prepared to consider 
the further experiences of a regenerate soul. These facts are 
so conditionally that they imply very much what the experi- 
ences will be. Our business is to inquire what they are, what 
they possibly may be, and what they ought to be. 

It will aid in the examination of these points if we can place 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 189 

distinctly before our minds an ideally perfect standard to which 
to compare attainments. The standard is the ideally perfect. 
The aim of grace is to raise the soul as nearly as possible to the 
realization of the ideal. The demand on the regenerate soul is 
that it endeavor constantly after the nearest approximation pos- 
sible to it. Of these three points we think there can be no 
doubt. 

The difference between the actual state of the soul's experi- 
ence and the state possible to be attained or to have been at- 
tained will point out the defects of experience or state of the 
soul which will demand improvement. The possible is re- 
quired, and only the possible. Defect, as compared with the 
possible, not with the ideal, is moral defect, and demands im- 
provement. 

Now, what is the ideal standard for a finite soul posited as 
man is % The standard in God is absolute — changeless and in- 
finite ethical perfection. That is not the standard for any cre- 
ated being, because to snch perfection the finite can make no 
approach. That can be no standard which cannot be ap- 
proached. 

The ideal of a perfect man. Man is a soul. The experience 
is, therefore, that of a soul comprising intellect, sensibilities, 
and will — sensibilities including the entire emotive nature, de- 
sires, affections, sensitivities passions, and appetites. An ethic- 
ally perfect soul is one which perfectly knows its law and 
perfectly obeys it — a soul whose intellect unerringly discerns 
between things which ought to be and those which ought not 
to be ; a soul delicately sensitive to slightest approach of evil 
or wrong ; a coul whose affections are so regulated that only 
those things are loved which ought to be loved and whose de- 
sires do not covet things that are discerned to be wrong; a soul 



140 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

tliat supremely loves God and revolts at whatever would dis- 
please him; a soul rightly affected toward the welfare of all 
other sentient existence and loving other souls as it loves itself ; 
a soul whose will is unfalteringly determined to all righteous- 
ness and against all unrighteousness ; a soul that with eager de- 
light chooses both to do and suffer all that it ought to do and 
suffer and promptly refuses to do every thing'that it ought not 
to do every moment of its existence, with perfect freedom and 
with full consciousness of power to the opposite and in the 
presence of all possible temptations to the opposite. 

It is perfectly obvious that this ideal has never been reached 
by any but one man on the earth. It was reached by Jesus of 
Nazareth. This fact places him forever unapproachably out of 
the category of merely human souls. It is also perfectly obvi- 
ous that if ultimate salvation depended upon the realization of 
this ideal no child of man could ever be saved. It follows that 
the impossible ideal is not what is required by the eternal eth- 
ical law. That which is required of the human soul is the 
nearest approach possible. That is required, and any failure 
marks not only defect but in some sense culpable defect, 
which, to free us from its consequences, will require the contin- 
uous compassionate treatment which infirmity must always lay 
under tribute. 

The standard of privilege and of duty laid upon the soul, if 
not to reach this ideal of a perfect man, because for some rea- 
son it is impossible, is that the soul should make the utmost 
effort to do so — is that it should approach it as nearly as possi- 
ble ; possible not to itself alone by its own unaided power, but 
as nearly as possible with all available helps at its command. 
This is the ethical law that is binding, and comparison with 
which determines the degree of its moral perfection or imper- 
fection — appro vableness or unapprovableness to God. 






PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 141 

Now, with this standard of ideal perfection and with this 
standard of duty, let us proceed to determine what are the 
actual facts of Christian experience. We desire as nearly as 
possible in the statement which follows to be true to facts with- 
out prejudice or partiality. The object is to describe Chris- 
tians as they show themselves ; as we, being one of them, have 
known them for sixty years. Two extremes must be avoided 
— the extremes of under and of overestimating them. There 
is such a correlation between subjective states and external 
manifestation that the latter is a fair interpreter of the former. 
A man is generally internally approximately what he habitu- 
ally shows externally. The tree is, and must be, judged by 
its fruits. The law of interpretation applies to all, and as it 
is a test furnished by our Lord we may not shrink from it. 

Taking this rule, we affirm that there is a radical difference 
between Christian and unchristian souls. Unsatisfactory as the 
account we must give of ourselves may be, it will nevertheless 
show that fact. There is a regenerate family on the earth, and 
it ehows its divine lineaments, though often sadly blurred ; but 
the faults of Christians are habitually greatly exaggerated. 
The diabolical lie is persistently affii-med, by enemies and mor- 
bid fanatics, that Christians are no better than others. A gross 
immorality which some professed Christian commits is trump- 
eted as proof, when the fact that it is seized upon and bruited 
is proof of the very opposite — that it is the exception ; which 
proves that the rule is the other way. 

The fact is that among the millions called Christians there 
are some hypocrites, and that some who were real Christians 
fall away into gross sins, and that it is so is what is to be ex- 
pected. The hypocrite never did belong to the family. His 
proper place was outside, not inside, the fold. His hypocrisy 
simply shows that he was not properly classified, not proof that 



142 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

Christians are hypocrites. The apostate ceases to be a Chris- 
tian. The Church on the discovery of the fact spews them 
both out as soon as the facts are discovered. 

What is true of evangelical churches of all denominations is 
that their communicants, while far from perfect, and while 
many of them give but little proof of regenerate life, are in 
heart and life characteristically, morally, and spiritually as dif- 
ferentiate from the unregenerate mass of men as day is from 
night. What Christian Church tolerates rogues, and harlots, 
and drunkards, and rum-sellers, and profane persons, and dis- 
solute persons, or those guilty of any known immoralities? 
No ; it is a defamation that the visible Church of God, even, is 
not distinguishable from the unbelieving world. Her altars are 
comparatively pure and her homes unsoiled. I have been inti- 
mately acquainted with the Church of all names, and carefully 
observant of her members in all parts of the world, for fifty 
years, and among the hundreds of thousands of whom I have 
had fair knowledge not a thousand have been detected in im- 
moral practices, and such have been expelled upon detection. 
That discipline is often too low is not disputed ; but that even 
is not so of immoralities but of minor practices, and faults 
about which there is difference of judgment as to how they 
should be dealt with lest too great rigor might destroy the 
wheat with the tares. The aim of the Church in the matter of 
a ruling purpose is that its members should be blameless, 
should abstain from all known sin, and love and revere God 
constantly and perfectly. In these fundamental aspects it is 
a comparatively holy Church. Its ministers are pure men ; 
its influence is for righteousness ; its services are divine ; it 
stands as the breakwater against the incoming floods of sin ; it 
stands for God and with God ; it is the only organized power on 
earth that seeks to suppress all wrong and to recover men from 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 143 

the corruptions which destroy them. All this it does firmly, 
persistently, and with singleness of aim, at expense of labor and 
sacrifice. What of redeeming agency there is for the world, what 
there is for the betterment of mankind, flows from beneath 
her altars. To decry her and exaggerate her faults is to be- 
grime and cripple the only organized agency on earth which 
supports the sinking hopes of mankind. So much must be kept 
in mind while we deal faithfully with the defects of Christians. 

Christians are not perfect. This is a general fact of all 
Christians. Let us bravely look at the facts as they are pain- 
fully known to ourselves and as they appear in the light of a 
perfect standard. Christians are men. They are quarried, 
from the common rock. In estimating them it must be remem- 
bered what they were — their blood and stock, and enviroments. 
There is marked diversity among Christians at the dawn of the 
divine consciousness and all the way along their after career. 
Some enter upon the Christian life with a clear and exultant 
experience, some with the simple consciousness of a desire and 
purpose to be Christians. This notes a great difference at the start. 
Some have an intelligent understanding of what their new life 
requires. Some have but a confused idea, with a strong im- 
pulse. There is difference of temperament, difference of intel- 
ligence, difference of personal habits in all respects. These 
facts inevitably carry over and result in different types of char- 
acter and expression throughout life. Nature determines these 
diversities. In the spiritual, as in the natural, world there are 
occasional lusxis naturce — monstrosities. 

Circumstances are influential, also — peculiarities of the people 

with whom the new-born soul finds itself associated ; peculiarities 

of the sect notions and habits where its lot is cast ; peculiarities 

of the pabulum on which it is fed ; peculiarities of the ministry 

10 



144 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

under which it is trained, the ideals which are set before it, and 
other things. There are general types which take on the denomi- 
national impress. It is not difficult to detect a Presbyterian, an 
Episcopalian, a Congregationalist, a Baptist, a Methodist, on 
slight acquaintance. But under all these types and diversities 
there is a family likeness, and the general and cardinal facts of 
experience are identical. 

I note, first, among these common and cardinal facts of ex- 
perience, beginning with regeneration and holding permanently 
throughout, a fixed desire and determination on the part of 
professed Christians to be true Christians — fixed, yet variable — 
stronger at one time than another. There are ebbs and flows 
in the spiritual tides. Sometimes faith becomes feeble and love 
grows cold, but they are not therefore extinguished. Doubtless 
many find their way into the churches without any profound 
spiritual experience, for one cause or another. They cannot be 
said to be Christians except in matters of external conformity 
with more or less strictness. Many such have been taught that 
this is all that is necessary. They aspire to nothing more. 
This is a grievous fault, but possibly even such derive some 
good and may even be led along to salvation. But among 
us, however it may be with sister Churches, there are but few 
who pass within the fold without a definite understanding that 
subjective experience is required, and a more or less distinct 
profession of having passed through such an experience. They 
are required to avow faith in Christ and a determination to lead 
a godly life. With rare exceptions they abstain from sinful 
practices and give proof of a prevailingly strong desire to be 
true disciples of Christ, but with variability. We regret to admit 
that the modern practice of many popular evangelists, of voting 
men to be Christians by a show of hands, has greatly damaged 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 145 

the average character of so-called Christians. Men are even 
asked to vote themselves in holiness. The standard of Christian 
experience has been sadly lowered by this superficial method. 

There is continuity in Christian experience, and this is mat- 
ter of experience. The defects which confessedly exist, while 
flaws and faults, do not wholly break up and abrogate the regen- 
erate life. The will does not go over to unrighteousness. The 
relation between the soul and God is not dissevered. The 
branch is not plucked out of the vine, and never can be until it 
tears itself out by absolute sin and the volitional determination 
of itself to evil. With its inexcusable defects God is patient 
and long-suffering. 

Some souls from the moment of their regeneration suffer no 
abatement. Their fervor never wanes, their love never grows 
cold. They go from strength to strength. It is not the rule, it 
must be confessed ; but, while there are exceptions, it is the 
rule that the divine life, once implanted, abides. With falter- 
ing step, it may be, having entered upon the Christian course 
the soul pursues it to the end, or, falling away in some untoward 
hour and getting out of the fold, is almost certain to return. 

I note, second, as a common fact of Christian experience, 
that the ideal varies with the ebbs and tides of the soul. Some- 
times it is high, sometimes low ; and there are correspond- 
ing differences in the external manifestation. Now there is 
joyousness, warmth, zeal, earnestness, intensity, high endeavor, 
strictness; anon there is lukewarnmess, lethargy, laxity ap- 
proaching indifference, self-indulgence, worldliness. JSTow the 
soul is borne along on a crest of triumph ; now it is down in a 
trough of despondency, weak, irresolute, unhappy, discon- 
tented. Now the path is rocky and hard and the wilderness bar- 
ren, and the flesh-pots are tempting and inviting ; again, there is 



146 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

music and dancing and gladness in all the chambers of the soul ; it 
is a feast-day in Zion, and all the windows are illuminated and ban- 
ners flutter along the walls and turrets. When the ideal is high 
and the soul in its divinest mood the graces shine and duty and 
sacrifices and trials are easy ; when it is otherwise duty is irk- 
some and trials and sacrifices an intolerable burden. 

I note, third, that dissatisfiedness of the soul with itself is a 
common experience of all regenerate souls, varying from intense 
distress at times to mild regret. Its experiences are not satis- 
factory. It has a prevailing consciousness of inexcusable de- 
fects. It does not reach its ideal. It feels the chidings of the 
Holy Spirit. It lashes itself with reprovings. It often carries an 
unhealed wound because of its unfaithfulness, or failure to be what 
it feels it ought to be. There is the abiding consciousness that 
there is something better for it. When it is upheld and sus- 
tained in an average experience, and others think well of it, and 
there is no external failure visible to other eyes, it discerns in- 
ward poverties which grieve and distress it. It would love 
more, be more patient, more brave, more trusting, more cheer- 
ful, stronger, more robust ; it would work more and do more and 
be more. There are holy yearnings in it after something higher 
and nobler. There is often a distressing sense of remaining evil 
in it. I think I am safe in saying this is universal experience 
subsequent to the experience of regeneration. 

This has been called in our theologizing and in the theologiz- 
ing of all the Christian schools the " remains of the carnal 
mind," "unextracted roots of inbred sin," "the spirit of the 
flesh," "natural corruption," "seeds of depravity," "the old 
man," and by various other semi-scriptural names. These 
phrases all point to a fact, but not unfrequently a sensuous 
meaning is attached to them which leads wide apart from the 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 147 

truth which they aim to represent. They are supposed to rep- 
resent some sediment or infusion in the soul or in the body, or 
in both, which must be washed out. What is meant and what is 
true is this : When the soul is forgiven, and its affections are 
turned to righteousness and its will is determined to the prac- 
tice of righteousness, so that it passes from under the dominion 
of evil, impulses and inclination to evil are not completely erad- 
icated. They still arise and assert themselves. They assail 
and disturb the peace of the soul. They have a constant ten- 
dency to prevail with it. They find support in its old habits 
and in its native lusts — that is, desires and cravings. 

I note, fourth, that it accords with Christian experience that 
faithfulness keeps perennial sunshine in the soul. Watchful- 
ness against the approaches of evil, a habit of the soul of con- 
stantly looking to God, not simply at critical moments, mo- 
ments of trial and temptation, but at all times ; scrupulous and 
conscientious attendance upon the services of the sanctuary, 
resistance of all suggestions of wrong, pronounced allegiance 
to Christ, smooth the path and make it easy and delightful, 
while all attempts at compromise with questionable practices 
make the way rough and thorny. The Christian soon learns 
that he cannot travel alone. He must have Christ with him. 
To have Christ with him he must keep in the path. The way 
is strait and narrow — the King's highway of holiness through a 
world of sin. There are lures and snares ; he must avoid them. 
If he will he may be great and strong ; if he will he may be 
weak and vacillating. 

While there is a fundamental agreement in the phenomena 
of all soul regeneracy there is great and marked dissimilarity 
among Christians. One soul experiences and exhibits marked 



148 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

pre-eminence of some one or several graces, but no less marked 
defects as to other graces. Another soul reverses the order. 
Still another presents high or moderate attainments along the 
whole line of the graces. The mean average will perhaps not 
vary much except in extreme cases of either general defective- 
ness or general excellencies. May I, for the purpose of fur- 
nishing a mirror into which each reader may look and find some- 
thing like himself, present several illustrations : A is a man of 
great faith ; he is mighty in public prayer ; his soul is easily 
roused to enthusiasm ; but he is variable in temper, and, like a 
chameleon, takes the hue of his surroundings. He does not ap- 
pear to advantage at the hustings or in the market. His indis- 
cretions often trouble him. His best friends have to bear with 
him and apologize for him. B is a paragon of discretion — never 
offends good taste or good morals ; is careful in the use of his 
tongue, and coldly proper as an icicle ; but he is rarely present 
at the prayer-meeting, and his faith never kindles into enthu- 
siasm. C is as honest as the heathen Cato ; scrupulous to a 
line in business — his word is as good as his bond ; but he is hard 
and unsympathetic in his family ; his wife has no spending 
money, and his children dread his frown. D flourishes in an 
experience-meeting and is loud for spirituality, punctual to all 
the services, and zealous for revivals ; but he is stingy and 
mean in charities, and leaves others to defray the expenses. E 
professes holiness, and wants a holiness-meeting once a week ; 
but cares little for any tiling else and wears out his minister 
and sets the neighborhood in strife by his uncharitable speeches 
and his selfish and unchristlike spirit. F is a bigot : a Meth- 
odist bigot, who glories in free grace and a universal atonement ; 
a Baptist bigot, who thinks nobody unimmersed ought to be 
allowed the communion or can be saved ; a Presbyterian bigot, 
who thinks the way to heaven leads through the Westminster 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 149 

Confession, and is not certain that infants can be saved, and 
is quite certain that no heathen can ; a Congregational bigot, 
that sees no possibility of grace ontside the standing order; an 
Episcopal bigot, that considers it a damnable heresy not to 
believe in apostolical succession, but is uncharitable or worldly 
or self-indulgent. 

These are the flies that spoil the ointment ; the spiritual 
monstrosities that deform the bride of Christ and bring discredit 
on Ms fair name. No age has been without them, and no 
saintliest sect. Many of the individuals in these several genera 
without doubt are, in the root of the matter, Christians ; they 
mean righteousness and loyalty ; they have an experience of 
grace ; in their deepest heart they love God, and they would 
not consort with sinners. They are simply malformations — 
like men with defective members. Meantime E, the general 
type, is a humble follower of Christ who is gentle in his 
manners ; kind and sympathetic in his spirit ; true in all his 
business relations ; faithful to his Church ; careful and con- 
sistent in his walk ; generous in his devisings for the poor ; 
diligent in business, with an open hand for the support of every 
movement for the uplift of man ; but he makes little noise, and 
rarely speaks of himself. And F is a glorious Christian who 
loves God with all his heart, and dares to say it at suitable 
times, not boastingly, but confidently and humbly ; and men 
believe it because of his sublime and godlike life. He loves 
the house of God, and his seat is never vacant without cause. 
He bears his share of the burdens cheerfully ; if needs be, 
more. He is earnest for the salvation of the world ; prays 
for it, and pays for it ; holds up the hands of his minister with 
encouraging words and helpful deeds ; has sunshine in his face 
and in his soul — at home, in his place of business, and in the 
house of G-od ; bears trials with equanimity ; is unselfish, 



150 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

generous, and lias a hand and heart full of charity. No envy 
or jealousy or ill feeling has a corner in his soul. He is never 
a self-inflated troubler of the church to which he belongs. 

The course of Christian experience ought to be like "the 
path of the just, which shineth more and more unto the perfect 
day." There is every reason why it should be so — everything 
to inspire it. The cause he has espoused and the experience he 
has had deserve and demand magnificent manhood. It ought 
to be impossible that he should be less than sublime. Why is 
it that this result does not follow ? Simply the remaining 
power of old ideas and the corruption of the affections and 
enslavement of the will by them. There is still a contest car- 
ried on in the soul as to who shall reign. It tolerates the con- 
troversy. It says God shall reign. It will not entertain the 
idea of the dominion of its old and now dethroned master; but it 
has not faith or courage enough to determine on their absolute 
expulsion. It is confused as to how much indulgence may be 
allowed them. They make constant encroachments. There is 
schism where there ought to be harmony. Conscience illumi- 
nated by the Holy Spirit says one thing; desire of the flesh and 
the world say another. The will plays fast and loose between 
the opposing forces. It will not go over to unrighteousness, 
but it will not decide for ideal righteousness. It will not sin, 
but it will dally. It is determined not to yield to. temptation, 
but it often makes a weak resistance. It has burned the 
bridges, but at times it half inclines to rebuild them. It has 
not strength to push away from the borders of the enemy's 
country ; but sometimes lingers with a half-craving look to the 
apples of Sodom and the fleshpots of Egypt. There is a pull 
both ways in it — with an occasional inclination to compromise. 
It despises gross sin, but it courts some indulgence. God 
wants the soul ; he gives the larger half. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 151 

From all tin's it will appear that average Christian experience 
is not unalloyed. It is not the experience of an ideally perfect 
soul. There are none such on earth, and never will be. That 
estate belongs to the world to which Christian experience leads. 
It is the experience of an exile far from home with an inter- 
vening wilderness to pass ; of a soul beleaguered by foes ; of a 
soul in the furnace of trial ; of a soul on the field of battle. It 
is not a perfectly happy experience. The actual experience has 
its griefs and sorrows and heart-aches — its defeats with its vic- 
tories. But its griefs are better than the joys of sin ; it is 
better to suffer affliction with the people of God, if need be, than 
to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. It is better to lie 
wounded, and even to die, wrapped in a flag of loyalty than to 
ride in a chariot with the brand of treason. There is happiness 
in the pursuit and aspirations after righteousness, despite all 
the trials, which must forever be unknown to souls under the 
bondage of sin. This happiness comes to every sincere soul, in 
the conscious peace and safety of a life of faith — " the peace of 
God that passeth understanding." 

But is there not something better for the Christian soul than 
the defective experience I have described ? I unhesitatingly 
answer, Yes. The possibilities of grace are not exhausted in 
an average experience. The common defects are not necessary, 
and they are not excusable. They are defects — flaws and faults 
which may be and ought to be remedied. The soul is conva- 
lescent, with promises of perfect healing if it will, but the cure 
is not complete. The goal of perfect health has not been reached. 
It is a forgiven soul, and so delivered from guilt. It is a regen- 
erate soul, having in it initial restoratives to normalcy — the actual 
presence of the divine life in it — but it has remaining defects, 
flaws and faults, which demand further cure, and for the want of 



152 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

which it does not enjoy continuous sunshine, but often suffers 
eludings of conscience and reproof of the blessed Holy Spirit. 

Now, I think, any candid and intelligent Christian will 
admit that these facts are the general facts of Christian experi- 
ence. What is the philosophy of these facts ; that is, what is 
the rational explanation of them? To this question I must 
answer, first, it is not because a better experience is not possi- 
ble. I think I am safe in saying that there is no Christian soul, 
whatever its attainments in grace, that does not feel that it has 
not exhausted the possibilities of grace. I think we must all 
agree that any remaining defect is not on God's part. His part 
of the work is not imperfect. The forgiveness is a perfect for- 
giveness. The seed of the divine life implanted is a perfect 
seed. He has furnished all the conditions requisite on his part 
for a perfect result — so far as a perfect result can be reached. 
His spirit has come into the soul to restore it, and realize in it 
complete harmony with its law, if it will. 

My second affirmation is, that any remaining defectiveness of 
experience is the fault of the soul itself. That fault is either a 
curable fault or it is not. If it is not curable, it must arise from 
the nature of the subject ; that is, must be because the subject 
will not admit of any thing more perfect. That is a conceivable 
fact. There is a limit to the possibilities of the finite. But if 
th.'s be the case, the defect cannot involve blameworthiness in 
any sense. For not to realize the impossible can violate no 
ethical obligation. But if it is a curable defect, it must be 
curable either by the soul itself, or by God, who is the co-factor, 
or by both conjointly. If it is curable by the soul itself, then 
the soul is at fault. If it is curable by God himself, and if it 
ought to be cured, then God is at fault. This is an impossible 
thought. But if it is curable by God and the soul conjointly, 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 153 

then the fault must fall upon both or upon one of the co-factors. 
It is impossible to think that God is at fault. Then the fault 
must still be with the soul for some failure on its part, which acts 
as a hinderance to God in doing what he w T ould do for it if it 
were faithful to prescribed conditions. If God does not do all 
that he might do if the soul contributed its conditioning part 
the responsibility still falls on the soul. Its experience is 
defective because it will have it so, or because in some way, 
from an infirmity which it fails to overcome or which cannot 
be overcome, it does not furnish the conditions of a more perfect 
experience. 



154 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 



LECTURE VIII. 

TES OF GRACE, ANE 

Can ordinary Christian experience be improved? We 
unhesitatingly answer, yes. Ought it to be improved ? Again 
we unhesitatingly, answer, yes. When may it be improved ? 
We unhesitatingly answer, now ; and continuously evermore. 
In what respects and how may it be improved ? This will re- 
quire more extended answer. 

I approach the question, In what respect and how may the 
experience of a regenerate soul be improved by the postulation 
of a law ? 

All movements in the spiritual world, as in the natural, are 
regulated by law — nothing is left to accident or the hazard of 
chance. God is a God of order. He regulates his own move- 
ments according to perfect rules, which he never violates. 
They are as fixed and immutable as his own nature and infinite 
perfections. 

Natural science is unraveling the mysteries of nature simply 
by ascertaining the fixed and unalterable laws. Spiritualistic 
science must pursue the same method. The problem is more 
involved, but, we must believe, not absolutely insoluble. The 
regulating law may be found by a profound study of the soul, 
with the aid of the reflected light of revelation. 

We begin with the statement that a spirit is a real being and 
a perfectly definite being — as absolutely so as any other being. 
Nothing in nature is in any respect more real. As a being, a 
spirit is exactly what God made it — nothing more — nothing 
less — nothing other. As a being it has added nothing to itself 
and can add nothing. In this respect it is as powerless as any 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 155 

material atom. There may be varied types of spiritual beings, 
each differing from all others in degrees and kinds of powers, 
for aught we know; but each type, and each individual under 
the type, has, as to content of being, precisely the dower 
imparted in creation. As to the powers and attributes with 
which it is endowed, therefore, and as to the environments in 
which it finds itself placed, it can have no more responsibility 
than any other atom has. This is our first postulate. 

The human soul, whose experiences are the subject of our 
inquiry, is better known to us than any other spirit, and in 
some respects better known to us than any other being. ~No 
knowledge is so certain as that which is given in consciousness. 
The soul — its powers, states, acts, and laws of action — is the 
immediate subject of consciousness. By consciousness we know 
the existence of soul — the direct cognition of it emerges in 
every other knowledge. We know it as the ego — the self and 
every other object, including the body, as objective — as the not- 
self — as external. In the same way, by consciousness, we know 
that the self is unknown to consciousness, as possessing any of 
the qualities we perceive in material objects, as form, color, 
weight, divisibility, and such like. We know that, while void 
of these qualities, the self knows itself as possessing other qual- 
ities which material objects do not possess, or are not perceived 
to possess. These qualities are, power to know, including the 
intellectual group— to perceive, to form ideas, to think, to 
reason, to differentiate, to compare, to judge, to remember, to 
distinguish between what things are true and what are fanciful ; 
power of imagination and faith ; powers of sensibility — the 
sensitive and emotive group — as power to love and hate, to feel 
joy and sorrow, approbation and remorse, pain and pleasure ; 
the moral group — power to distinguish between right and 
wrong, to feel the obligation of the ought and ought not, to feel 



156 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 

the counter attractions of objects known to be right or wrono-; 
the voluntary group — power to choose between objects which 
are discerned to be right or wrong, power of free self-deter- 
mination to this or that or the other ; to make good or evil 
choices, to obey or disobey the imperative of righteous laws. 

If there is any thing known, so much the ego knows of itself. 
The soul is able to know still more than these qualities, attri- 
butes, powers, or whatsoever you choose to call them, of 
itself. It cognizes certain laws of relation and interaction 
among these several groups of powers, regulative of them — an 
inner and inviolable constitution or economy of its life. While 
it knows that all these groups of powers have a unitary ground, 
that is, that the self is one and indivisible, it knows that the 
groups of powers act separately, but under law, and each group 
under its own law, and that the interaction of the several groups 
among and upon each other is under a predetermined law also, 
which never is and never can be violated by itself, and which 
its creator will never disregard. Under this sacred constitution 
the intellectual group of powers takes the initiative in every 
movement. The movement may stop here, and neither the 
natural or moral sensibilities participate at all — may not at all 
be called into exercise. The mind perceives, judges, fancies, 
remembers — that is all. No sensibility is excited, no emotion 
stirred. An object has passed before it, but has aroused no 
passion, no desire, no feeling. When the sensibilities are 
untouched the voluntary group cannot be brought into exercise. 
In order to this, some emotive condition must supervene. The 
second group must in some way be touched before the third can 
be brought into exercise. 

In order to bring the second group into exercise, it is requisite 
not only that there should be an exercise of the first, but the 
object which passes before the first group must have power 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTTAN EXPERIENCE. 157 

to interest the second in some way and to some degree — must 
start some emotion of desire, fear, curiosity, or interest of some 
kind — otherwise, it will pass simply as a shadow over the 
landscape. 

Now, it is under the operation of this law that God develops 
ethical states in the soul of man ; it is by means of it that 
he expels evil and enthrones holiness. Careful examination 
w T ill discern in this law the solution of the problem of regen- 
eration and of soul progress toward perfection. To expel the 
false he introduces the true ; to win from the evil he presents 
the good. He sets life and death before the soul, that it may 
choose which. He quickens and energizes by means of the 
truth. It is what has been aptly called " the expulsive power 
of a new affection." In regeneration he creates a preponderance 
of affection toward righteousness. He draws the soul by anew 
attraction. The will becomes empowered to reverse its former 
choices and determine upon a new course. The spiritual cur- 
rents set in a new direction. A new life dominates. The soul 
is revolutionized — born anew. The whole tenor of practice 
is changed. 

We have said the defects of experience after regeneration are 
of two kinds : First, in the matter of the subjective state of the 
soul ; second, in the matter of external manifestation. 

The status of the soul after regeneration has been already 
described at length, and it is only necessary to make a brief 
resume here. It is a forgiven soul with the principle of right- 
eousness implanted in it, but it has the evil of infirmity, of 
weakness, and strong tendencies to sin remaining in it, as 
the heirloom of its native abnormalcy or depravity ; and, fur- 
ther than that, tendencies to sin which have grown in it by in- 
dulgence and by the free choice of evil which has marked its 
previous life. The throb of the divine life in it is feeble and 



158 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

subject to fluctuations. There is not only weakness but also 
poverty in its graces. Infancy implies all this. All Christians 
are conscious of it. Some infants are more robust than others ; 
some are sickly and do not grow. Growth is not determined by 
time merely, but also by health and nutritious food. The 
soul, like the body, needs good constitution, rich blood, to begin 
with ; wants to be well born ; it also wants care and nutrition. 
Truth makes some tissue. Aspiration opens all the avenues to 
light and warmth. Prayer brings needed supplies. Where 
these are wanting life pulses feebly and emaciation is painfully 
visible. There are many sickly souls — not entirely dead, but 
only just alive. This is not a desirable state. Who is content 
with weakness and poverty of blood ? Who does not see 
beauty in the ruddy glow and the strong elastic movement ? 

The other defect we mentioned is that of the life. This fol- 
lows the other. If the inward life is feeble the outward will 
be sure to be careless, irregular, unsatisfactory. The stream 
will not rise above the fountain. There is interaction between 
the internal and external. A cold heart, absence of inner 
strength, will manifest itself in the practical life and outward 
example. So also unfaithfulness in the outward life will bring 
death to the soul. Fidelity in externals will help to the crea- 
tion and preservation of internal health, and the contrary. 

We now raise the question, Can these defects be removed, or 
in any degree removed ; and, if so, how and when f 

This is a subject among us of great importance as affecting 
the peace of the Church and as affecting the question what we 
are to teach as truth. 

Can the defect be removed, or in any degree be removed ? 
No one pretends that any amount of gracious agency that may 
be exerted in the soul can lift it into a state of absolute per- 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 159 

fection, or angelic perfection, or even Adamic perfection, 
though there is a total absence of proof that Adamic perfection 
rated very high. Thus by common consent a damage has come 
to the soul by sin that in some respects is irreparable while it 
remains in the body. All admit that as a soul, in the matter of 
the right adjustment of its affections and development of its 
intelligence and strength and proper action of its will, it is 
capable of great and progressive improvement. Some believe, 
and even assert it as matter of personal experience, that fol- 
lowing regeneration, by a special and separate act of the Holy 
Ghost, in answer to prayer and a faith which claims it, the sou/ 
may immediately and consciously be raised to a state in which 
all evil tendencies will be eradicated and all temptations cease 
to have any influence with it. Others believe that by continu- 
ous growth it may ultimately come into this state while yet in 
the body. But even those who hold this high view do not pre- 
tend that, while rendered ethically perfect, it is freed from in- 
firmities of judgment or delivered from defects which do nc 
affect character. 

All along through the Christian ages there have been 
Johannine spirits of such saintliness as to give sanction to the 
most extreme views as to the possibilities of grace. Thomas a, 
Kempis, Fenelon, Fletcher, Madame Guyon, and others dead, 
and some still living might be added to the list. For more than a 
hundred years it has been a subject of deep interest among Chris- 
tians of mystical tendencies in all sects, and especially among 
the Methodist family of churches. It has undoubtedly given 
rise to fanaticisms and delusions in an alarming degree. 

Meantime there is a great truth which must be conserved, 

and, as far as possible, rescued from the abuses to which it has 

become subjected. The odium that gathers about it by evil 

association is no excuse for its desertion. Christ,. if on the 

11 



160 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN' EXPERIENCE. 

gibbet, is still Christ. A jewel is still a jewel however in- 
crnsted with base alloys. The alloys may hide the precious 
gem or disfigure its beauty, but cannot destroy its value. It is 
the task of Christian patience to remove the debasing incrusta- 
tions and set it in position. 

The truth to be preserved is that there is a higher experience 
possible to Christians than that which is attained in and at the 
time of regeneration ; and this must be so taught as not to re- 
flect discredit on regeneration on the one hand cr excite fanat- 
icism on the other, and so as to inspire aspiration after it as duty 
and privilege. The possibility of enlargement is beyond ques- 
tion. The duty is plain. The desire is felt by every truly re- 
generate soul. It may and ought to be by growth in grace day 
by day. It may be by sudden and overwhelming manifestations 
to and in the soul at any moment when earnestly sought. It is 
precisely the same grace of life in all stages of possible enlarge- 
ment — God more and more, or in a moment, completely fill- 
ing the regenerate soul with his presence and his love, so that it 
effloresces in all the graces of righteousness ; its love is perfect 
and its peace is undisturbed. 

There is such an enlargement possible, and we must believe it 
is possible at any moment. There is no limit to the possibilities 
of grace short of the perfect love which keeps perpetual sunshine 
of God's favor. The limits are in ourselves. God wills that his 
people should be a holy people ; that every facet of the saved 
soul should reflect his image ; that the seed of life implanted in it 
should grow to a tree of righteousness, every bough of which 
should come to perfect fruitage. He would have all his soldiers 
valiant, all his saints appearing before the Lord and going from 
strength to strength. He would have no schisms in the ranks and 
no laggards in the march. He would see all clothed in the beauti- 
ful garments of meekness, gentleness, and love. He would have 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 161 

a glorious Church, without spot or wrinkle, whose priests are 
clothed with salvation and whose saints shout aloud for joy. lie 
would have his Zion a city set on a hill whose glory cannot be 
hid, and whose shining would lighten the nations. For this he 
would have each soul filled with the glory and joy of his presence 
— a sacred temple all of whose recesses are undefiled. We are 
sure that this is so. There is no Christian soul that does not feel 
that it is so. It is the ringing cry resounding through all the 
corridors of every Christian soul : " Be ye holy that bear the 
vessels of the Lord." 

What is this higher grace ? Some call it holiness ; some 
purity ; some sanctification ; some perfection ; some maturity. 
There has been much unseemly disputation over the name as 
well as much fanatical profession concerning the experience, 
and much crude and unsound teaching as to what it includes 
and how it is to be attained, and much ill-tempered criticism. 

It answers all the ends of description to say it is the perfect- 
ing of the soul in love. Love is not simply the queen of the 
graces, but the mother of them all — the all-embracing. Love 
is the fulfilling of the law; love made perfect excludes envy, 
jealousy, pride, and all violent and hurtful tempers and acts; 
love is reverent, meek, humble, docile, patient, obedient, work- 
eth no ill, fulfilleth all righteousness. Perfect love inspires per- 
fect faith, courage, heroism, self-denial, casteth out all fear. 
Perfection of holy love is the perfection of saintship. The cul- 
tivation of every other grace is prompted by love, and all growth 
in them is measured by and is heightening of love. Love to God 
is a divine inspiration. God fills the soul with his love to over- 
flowing. It thrills with gladness. It expels impurity. While 
it reigns there is no place for evil thoughts, evil desires, evil 
feelings. Heaven has already come. Can it be permanent at 



162 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

its highest pitch ? We think we are safe in saying not, as an 
emotion. The thrill of love and joy must be intermittent in a 
life like ours on the earth. Other feelings must come and for 
the time obscure and replace these. But as a principle gov- 
erning the life we are bold to say love may and should abide 
moment by moment and without alloy. That is all God wants ; 
that is moral perfection ; that is spiritual holiness ; that opens 
heaven. Heaven will differ from the present as simple full- 
ness of all that love implies, with nothing to interrupt its ex- 
pression and nothing to detract from its rapture — no jar, no 
abatement, no alloy — love inspiring, directing, thrilling every 
power for ever and ever. 

How may this better experience be attained ? To this we 
answer, just as all spiritual experience is attained : by the proper 
action of the soul itself and the co-working of God with it. It 
will not be forced ; it will not come unsought ; it will not come 
improperly sought. Mere desires or mere prayers or mere 
faith will not secure it. External reforms or mere legal moral- 
ity will not bring it. There are no artificial means or magical 
appliances that will help to it. Professions do not aid to it. 
It is not an esoteric trust conferred by some sanctified guild ; 
it is not necessary outcome of lapse of time ; it is not a .re- 
served grace to be realized only in the dying hour. 

God's methods with the soul are normal. Soul development 
is according to fixed and unalterable laws. That the soul come 
into its highest possibilities, what is necessary on the soul's 
part? 

First, it is necessary that it should have before it a distinct 
aim and a definite ideal. The general aim must be the attain- 
ment of the highest excellence of Christian character, as near 
an approach as possible to ideal perfection. The initial aim of 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. J 63 

the seeking soul was forgiveness, deliverance from guilt. This 
is the starting-point of all Christian experience. Hence the 
struggle of repentance and faith. In forgiveness and regen- 
eration it attains this primary aim, comes to the beginning of a 
holy character. But now another goal opens to it — the goal of 
perfected holiness, a life according to the divine ideal. Every 
renewed soul comes to feel not only that it has not fully at- 
tained, but an impulse of desire and a sense of obligation to the 
continued pursuit of something more. What that something 
more is should be resolutely studied. The soul must be in- 
duced to see and feel its defects and to consider the possibili- 
ties of grace and the obligation to reach them to the utmost. 
It is not a difficult thing to find what the defects are. As a 
rule they are open. The soul sees and feels them — its weak- 
nesses, its failures, its shortcomings, its want of utter devotion 
— remaining earthiness, leasing after questionable pleasures — 
moral defects and blemishes, not willful sins, but not a satisfy- 
ing freedom from evil impulses — a low average grade of spir- 
itual life. It must by attention to the chidings of the Spirit, to 
the calls of conscience, to the holy yearnings within in its best 
moments keep ever seeking. It must be earnest to keep the 
highest ideal before it, however it may feel rebuked by it. 
This is God's appointed method of soul growth. lie puts the 
standard before the soul and demands that it shall measure 
itself by it and measure its obligations by it. It must be loyal 
to the test. This is the finger-boarded road. The end to be 
aimed at we must remember is not a feeling, but a life ; not a 
shibboleth, but a character — a perfect cleansing of the heart 
from all sinful indulgence. 

The second point is a resolute determination to measure up 
to the divine standard — the ideal. It will cost something, but 
it is enough that God demands it, and both consistency and the 



164 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

soul's peace, and the greatest usefulness demand it. No head- 
way can be made without fixed purpose. The soul must say, I 
will by God's help. The resolution must be final — absolute 
There must be no compromise. God covets the whole heart. 

Third. These conditions being met, the prayer of faith will 
win the evermore increasing consciousness of completeness in 
Christ ; love will be enthroned ; more and more peace and every 
other grace will abound ; the soul will be filled with the fullness 
of God's love and will reflect his image. God's time is now, 
and every succeeding now. There is no need that we dispute 
about names. What the demand is and must ever be from day 
to day is holiness to the Lord — all of grace that absolute conse- 
cration of our whole being and present faith will bring us. 
Soul hunger and simple faith are our part. It is God's part to 
cleanse the temple and fill it with his glory. 

To keep any grace bestowed the soul must be alert. " Keep 
the soul with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life," 
is God's exhortation. As you see, synergism runs through 
from beginning to end of the whole process. God keeps only 
those who keep themselves. " Watch and pray, lest ye enter 
into temptation," is the command. " The Lord is thy keeper " 
is the encouragement. Nothing is so delicate as the purity of 
the soul — a breath of evil soils it. Contagion and pollution 
are in the earthly air ; temptation lurks in every ambush. 
Every motive needs to be scanned, every thought scrutinized, 
every feeling noted, the will vigilant and prompt to every 
duty. The heart must be kept clear from envy, evil imagina- 
tions and surmisings — selfishness, pride, self-will — must culti- 
vate meekness, docility, charity, humility, reverence, prayer- 
fulness, faith — in honor preferring others ; must see that love 
has absolute empire. The tongue, that unruly member, must 
be kept under constant espionage. The life must be pure, 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN- EXPERIENCE 165 

brave, generous, self-denying, full of good deeds and beautiful 
sanctities, void of strifes and contentions. The way is narrow 
and strait, " the king's highway of holiness " ; but with the 
constant supplies of God help, which faith and prayer will 
bring, it can be traveled, and perpetual sunshine will gladden 
the pilgrim soul who keeps it. Growth is God's order. No 
stage is or can ever be reached when the divine order is ex- 
cluded or superseded. The more vigorous the life implanted 
the more constant and marked should be the growth. Each 
new advance is the stage for another. " From the blade to the 
full corn in the ear" — from childhood to manhood, and ever 
more and more perfect manhood. Faith, prayer, watchful- 
ness, diligence, absolute purpose, are the divine conditions of 
success — holiness the goal. 

There is no such thing as growth or even continuance in 
grace without the continuous use of the acquired power. The 
law of increase, or even continued possession, is use. The para- 
ble of the talents. It is the universal law: "He that hath 
[that is, he that uses] to him shall be given " — use makes in- 
crease. " Not the hearer but the doer of the law" is the ap- 
proved servant. An unused talent shrivels and dies. It is 
important that we should not make mistake what is use. It 
is not use simply to be punctual to church, or even to private 
prayer and heart searching, or loud and constant testimony and 
profession. The public services of the Church are means of 
grace, and so of prayer and heart searching. Rightly used 
they give tone and strength, but they are the arsenal, the 
armory. They exist as means to an end. Holy living is the 
end. If we would grow in this we must use the strength de- 
rived, not merely enjoy it. It is the use that gives zest. Grace 
is given that we may act, not simply be happy. Holiness to 
the Lord means co-working with God. " If any man love me 



266 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

he will keep my commandments." He that is patient, indus- 
trious, generous, charitable, busy doing good, earnest in right 
living, will be the thrifty growing plant in the garden of the 
Lord. 

I quote from Dr. Roswell D wight Hitchcock's Eternal 
Atonement, a little volume of great beauty and in which is a 
large amount of useful reading : " What then is God's will ? 
So far as we ourselves are concerned this is the will of God, 
says an apostle, even our sanctitication. That we advance in 
holiness, subduing our sins, that we grow every day more 
pure, more fruitful, more like Christ, our pattern — this is the 
will of God concerning us. It is the making our religion not 
an entertainment, but a service. We are to set before us the 
perfect standard and then struggle to shape our lives to it. 
Personal sanctity must be made a business of. Those saints of 
the Middle Ages, like Tauler and a Kempis, who wrestled so 
hard for holiness, slaying so sternly their bosom sins and look- 
ing so meekly yet so fixedly to Christ, may well be invoked as 
the rebukers of our sloth. It is just at this point that the piety 
of our day is the most sadly defective. It is not sufficiently in- 
flamed with a desire after sanctity. It is self-indulgent when 
it ought to be self-denying — tolerant of impurities and infirmi- 
ties of which it ought to be utterly intolerant; cold and slack, 
when it ought to be warm and diligent; asleep over faults of 
character and in the presence of spiritual dangers which ought 
to awaken godly jealousy and godly fear. It is true we are 
saved by hope, and yet it is equally true that he who hath this 
hope in him should purify himself, as Christ is pure. In a 
word, it is character that is required of us ; laid, indeed, in 
grace and imperfect at the best, needing to shelter itself be- 
hind the perfect righteousness of Christ, yet a piece of solid 
moral masonry to be carried on and carried up by a life-long 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 167 

toil ; and this, too, not for our own sake, but for Christ's sake and 
because God so wills it. Our own spiritual comfort, the sure 
fruit of a careful walk with God, though an incident, is not to 
be the end of our endeavors, but all we do is to be out of sim- 
ple loyalty to redeeming love. Mere obedience to conscience 
is but a pagan virtue, which in the highest sphere is not a vir- 
tue at all. Virtue for us is obedience to God in Christ. Pains- 
taking, of course, it will be, that there may be no blot upon the 
life ; self-denying, as against our indulgence, our appetites, 
and our passions ; asking only for duty, though we knew it 
were asking for martyrdom ; and all for Christ. Such is the 
Will of God concerning us, and only he who does it should 
reckon himself a child of God. 

"But besides this resolute endeavor after personal sanc- 
tity we have duties also toward our Christian brethren. The 
fellowship of the saints, the Church catholic on earth, under 
whatever name or forms, as' widely reaching as Christendom 
itself — these are the only permitted boundaries of our love. 
Wheresoever Christ has gone with his quickening grace there 
must we also follow with the mantle of Christian charity. 
They who love a common Lord must love each other." * 

We have now sufficiently indicated the facts and processes of 
Christian experience in their order and relation and the under- 
lying implications. So far forth we have reached a philosophy 
of them — that is, a rational explanation of them. We have seen 
that they accord with fundamental moral and mental laws. It 
remains that we more particularly point out the reason why of 
them — the end they serve. This has been implied all along, 
but perhaps should be more carefully stated. 

It is a safe principle to assume that nothing in the divine 

*Eternal Atonement, pp. 47, 48. 



168 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

economy is without an adequate end. Wherefore all this 
arrangement ? 

To this we answer in general terms, it is God's plan of 
bringing men to eternal holy happiness. Man is a sinner ; 
this is God's way of saving him — that is, of rescuing him from 
the evils of sin. We make two points : First, there is no 
other way ; second, this is a rational and effectual way. Let 
any one seriously raise the question how man can be saved 
from sin, and he will soon discover that he has a difficult 
problem on hand. He will find that sin involves character and 
not merely external conduct; that -at its root it is rebellion 
against God ; resistance of all ethical laws ; hostility to the 
person and plans of the Almighty Sovereign of the universe; 
anarchy, ruin, death. 

How shall it be got rid of ? Character cannot be forced. 
It cannot be created by omnipotent will without annihilat- 
ing the moral system. The principle of administration that 
would uproot sin by force would at the same time uproot holi- 
ness — the possibility of it. The omnipotent force that would 
coerce a will would in the act obliterate the moral system. 

He cannot ignore sin, and treat it as he treats holiness. Let 
any one try to think it and he will be compelled to discover 
that it is impossible. God has no power to obliterate moral 
distinctions, so that sin and holiness shall be identical, or be 
treated as identical. Ethical principles are simply the immut- 
able principles of his own eternal holiness. To change them 
or ignore them would be to overthrow himself. 

There is no salvation by mere sovereignty. 

The problem is to get rid of sin — 'to change the sinner to a 
saint ; to make him such a being as a holy God can love. So 
to revolutionize him that holy law can approve him, and holy 
beings associate with him, and holy happiness come to him. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 169 

His impure thoughts must be taken out of him, his unholy nat- 
ure must be changed, his rebellious will must be made loyal, 
his malice and selfishness must be replaced with love, he must 
be put into harmony with heaven's people and heaven's law, 
and heaven's spirit, and heaven's practices. There is no other 
way to save him. 

Christian experience is God's way of solving the problem, 
his appointed method of reaching the end. We have seen 
what that method is. We have seen that it violates no ethical 
law ; that it does not require the surrender of holiness on God's 
part and that it does no violence to the freedom of man, and 
that it imperils no interest of the universe — that it honors 
eternal justice and eternal love. It is a process which not only 
may issue in salvation — -that is, not only furnishes a rational 
ground for salvation, but on ethical principles must issue in 
salvation. He that was a sinner, and as such was of ethical 
necessity excluded from heaven, which is but another name for 
holy happiness, by the change wrought in him becomes not 
only fitted for heaven, but on eternal ethical principles cannot 
be excluded from heaven. The change through which he has 
passed was exactly that which was needed — the means answer 
to the end, as any effect answers to its cause. 

In bringing the lectures on the philosophy of Christian ex- 
perience to a close a few advices may not be out of place. 

There is not a Christian among us, whether in the pulpit or 
in the pew, that does not feel that what God wants is a holy 
Church; that the bride of his Son should be spotless; that 
Zion should shine ; that a sinless age should come. 

The pulpit is God's great instrument for the accomplishment 
of these results. What is needed in these times is that the 
pulpit should be faithful. More and more let it sound the note 



170 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN- EXPERIENCE. 

of warning to the sinful generation. This must continue to be 
its chief function. It is " the ministry of reconciliation." Its 
commission is to warn, to persuade sinful men to flee from the 
wrath to come, and to build up the Church of believers in holy 
faith. Let it be true to its commission. Let it sound the note 
of warning, " dividing the word of its message faithfully, giving 
to saint and sinner each his portion in due season" — " cry aloud 
and spare not." 

The messenger of God should be wise. There never was a 
time when more wisdom was needed. There are many lo ! 
lieres and lo ! theres. Go not after them. Follow the only safe 
guide — the great Teacher himself . Preach the word : the whole 
word ; be instant in season and out of season. Avoid things 
that engender strife, contention, and unprofitable disputation. 
Cater to no party or prejudice. Keep the spirit of love and 
gentleness. Feed the flock; do not neglect the lambs. Preach 
not to please yourselves, but the Master whose servants you are. 
Beware lest your words and doctrines engender mischief. 
" Study to show yourselves approved of God, workmen that 
need not to be ashamed." Be not censorious in the pulpit. 
Keep ever in mind that when you season your words with bit- 
terness the harvest will not be sweet. Do not imagine that 
you can minister to life with tempers and words that lacerate 
and wound those whom you are sent to heal. Let it not be that 
the people who shall sit under your ministry shall, under the 
inspiration of your temper and teachings, be torn by divisions 
and factions. Heal the wounds and bind up the sores of the 
hurt of God's people. 

Preach the great doctrine of holiness, not technically or dis- 
putatiously, but in the spirit of love ; not to repel, but to attract 
and win. Preach it naturally, as you preach every other truth. 
Let it live and breathe through all your teachings and in all 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 17 1 

your services in due proportion and out of the heart of love. 
Avoid unholy holiness. Encourage aspiration after a beautiful 
and blameless life. Let your gospel so build men in truth and 
love and all your services so be intoned with unction of sacred- 
ness that hungry souls will be fed, and that cravings after less 
nutritious food will find no occasion. Deal gently with the weak 
and erring. Aspire, yourselves, after greatest sacredness of 
character — the highest soul experience. Set an example of 
meekness and modesty in your own professions, and of true and 
sublime character in your devotion to the work which has been 
committed to you. Remember the maxim, " like priest, like 
people," and be an example to the flock. 

A word of advice to those believers who do not make great 
professions of attainments in grace. You profess to be Chris- 
tians. That itself is a great profession. It places you among the 
children of God. It brings you under the obligations of a 
righteous and holy life. Recognize that fact. Especially 
beware of thinking it a praiseworthy thing — a virtue — not to 
profess much. More yet, beware of imagining that it lessens your 
obligation to a holy heart and a holy life ; rather lament the 
conscious deficiencies which restrain you. Above all, do not 
allow yourselves to take an attitude of hostility to high experi- 
ence because you do not yourself enjoy it, or because of preju- 
dice against some who seem immodest, and whose lives, to your 
thinking, contradict their professions. Justify not your delin- 
quencies because of their unseemliness. Think of the noble 
examples of the best saints. Be charitable and forbearing. Do 
not permit the frailties of others to be a hinderance to you. 
Deal faithfully with your own soul. Remember you are a dis- 
ciple of Christ; you represent him before men; you bear his 
name ; no man can stand for you ; no man's delinquencies can 



172 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

excuse you. Do not scandalize him by your unfaithfulness. If 
it is modesty that restrains you, pity the forward ; if it is con- 
scious shortcomings, be not censorious of others, but be quick 
to remedy your own faults. Remember your obligations ; do 
not forget your responsibility. See to it that your example is 
faultless. Be not content with any thing short of utmost 
salvation. 

A word to those who profess extraordinary attainments. 

To begin with, remember there is no difference between you 
u.nd your brethren that marks an essential distinction. You are 
brethren in the Lord — servants of the same Master, participants 
of the same life, members of the same family, journeying to 
the same heaven. Why should you fall out by the way and vex 
one another ? The difference is one of more or less experience, 
not one of kind. 

Have you more grace ; have you experienced more of the deep 
things of God ; is your brother less advanced ? Then the greater 
reason that you should be gentle and kind. You have been lifted 
into a great experience ; to you has been revealed more of the 
deep things of God ; a deeper life has come into your soul. 

Is there not reason that this great experience should make 
you an example of every grace 1 and more especially of the grace 
of humility and self -forgettingn ess ? If God has filled you thus 
with his wondrous love, ought it not make your love more 
abounding ? If you have tasted this grace I know you feel so. 

You will receive kindly some advices, I am sure, if you are 
persuaded they are w T ell meant, and I am sure what is here said 
is well meant. God wants a holy Church.' The w r ant of the 
age is a holy Church. The provisions of grace are adequate 
for a holy Church. Every effort possible ought to be employed 
to bring the Church up to the highest standard. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 173 

You love holiness. The first advice I offer is, love it more and 
more ; still continue to aspire after its greater depths and heights ; 
you cannot be too holy ; but do not make the mistake of imagining 
that the profession of holiness is holiness, or is a means to its 
attainment or a means to its continuance. Above all avoid 
extravagance in the manner and terms of profession. This has 
been and yet is a source of great evil. There is no occasion for it. 
Your heart compels you to confess what God has done for you. 
That is right, but you want to be wise in the manner of your 
confession, and your life to correspond with it ; otherwise it 
becomes an offense and does immense harm. Great mischief 
has come to the Church from this source. If your experience is 
genuine you would not do harm — make not your godliness itself 
an offense. It will not hurt you to be modest in speaking of 
yourself, to remember that you are fallible — not to think more 
highly of yourself than you ought to think ; in honor to prefer 
others. Remember that self -distrust is not a vice but a virtue 
rather. Remember further that any experience you may have 
had has not freed you from common infirmities, and therefore 
the reason for modesty. It is a comely and winning grace. Your 
fellow Christians who know you will, if your life accords with 
it, rejoice to hear, and will profit by, any profession you make 
if it be not extravagant in manner and word. Your speech and 
your experience will be to edification when inspired by love — 
never without such seasoning. There are noticeable tendencies 
which admonish you. Will you give heed ? 

That there are tendencies to overprofession, separation, spirit- 
ual egotism, pride, antinomianism, a freeing from the common 
law of duty, schism of the body of Christ, uncharitable judging 
of others, setting up a censorship over the pulpit, self-assertion 
and overweening confidence, a depreciation of the ordinary 
means of grace, fanaticism, no one who is observant can doubt. 






174 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

Every thoughtful Christian knows that these dangers are rife. 
You may not be conscious of them in yourself, but you know 
they exist. This ought to be sufficient to put you on your 
guard. 

I append Mr. Wesley's letter to Mr. Maxfield. You will see 
its appropriateness to our times : 

JOHN WESLEY ON SANCTIFICATION. 

The following characteristic letter from Mr. Wesley to Mr. 
Maxfield is found in Moore's Life of Wesley : 

" Without any preface or ceremony, which is useless between 
you and me, I will simply and plainly tell you what I dislike in 
your doctrine, spirit, or outward behavior. 

" 1. I like your doctrine of perfection, or pure love — love ex- 
cluding sin ; your insisting that it is merely by faith ; that con- 
sequently it is instantaneous (though preceded and followed by 
a gradual work), and that it may be now, at this instant. But 
I dislike your saying that a man may be as perfect as an angel ; 
that he can be absolutely perfect, that he can be infallible, or 
above being tempted ; or that the moment he is pure in heart 
he cannot fall from it, 

"I dislike your directly or indirectly depreciating justifica- 
tion, saying a justified person is not in Christ, is not born of 
God, is not sanctified, not a temple of the Holy Ghost, or that 
he cannot please God, or cannot grow in grace. 

" I dislike your saying that one saved from sin needs nothing 
more than looking to Jesus, needs not to hear or think of 
any thing else; believe, believe, is enough; that he needs no 
self-examination, no times of private prayer ; needs not mind 
little or outward things ; and that he cannot be taught by any 
person who is not in the same state. 

" I dislike your affirming that justified persons in general 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 175 

persecute them that are saved from sin, and that they have per- 
secuted you on this account. 

" 2. As to your spirit, I like your confidence in God and your 
zeal for the salvation of souls. 

" I dislike something which has the appearance of pride, of 
overvaluing yourselves and undervaluing others, particularly 
the preachers, thinking that not only are they blind, and that 
they are not sent of God, but even that they are dead — dead to 
God, and walking in the way to hell ; that they are going one 
one way, you another ; that they have no life in them ; your 
speaking of yourselves as though you were the only men who 
knew and taught the Gospel ; and as if not only all clergy, but 
all the Methodists besides, were in utter darkness. 

" I dislike something that has the appearance of enthusiasm ; 
overvaluing feeling and inward impressions ; mistaking the mere 
work of imagination for the voice of the Spirit ; expecting the 
end without the means, and undervaluing reason, knowledge, 
and wisdom in general. 

" I dislike something that has the appearance of antinomian- 
ism ; not magnifying the law and making it honorable ; not 
enough valuing tenderness of conscience and exact watchfulness 
in order thereto ; using faith rather as contradistinguished 
from holiness than as productive of it. 

" But what I most of all dislike is your littleness of love to your 
brethren ; your want of meekness, gentleness, lbng^suif ering ; 
your impatience of contradiction, counting every man your 
enemy that reproves or admonishes you in love ; your bigotry 
and narrowness of spirit, loving, in a manner, only those that 
love you ; your eensoriousness, proneness to think hardly of all 
who do not earnestly agree with you ; in one word, your divisive 
spirit. Indeed, I do* not believe that any of you either design 
or desire a separation. But you do not enough fear, abhor, and 
12 



176 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

detest it, shuddering at the very thought. All the preceding 
tempers tend to it, and gradually prepare you for it. 

" 3. As to your outward behavior, I like the general tenor 
of your life, devoted to God and spent in doing good. 

" I dislike your appointing such meetings as hinder others from 
attending either the public preaching, or their class, or band. 

" I dislike your spending so much time in several meetings 
as many that attend can ill spare from the other duties of their 
calling, unless they omit either the preaching, or their class, or 
baud. This naturally tends to dissolve our society by cutting 
the sinews of it. 

"As to more public meetings, I like the praying fervently 
and largely for all the blessings of God. I know much good 
has been done hereby, and I hope much more will be done. But 
I dislike several things therein : The using improper expressions 
in prayer, sometimes too bold, if not irreverent ; sometimes too 
pompous and magnificent, extolling yourselves rather than God, 
and telling him what you are, not what you want. Your affirm- 
ing people will be justified or sanctified just now. Four affirm- 
ing they are, when they are not. The bidding them say, i I be- 
lieve.' The bitterly condemning any that oppose, calling them 
wolves, etc., and pronouncing them hypocrites or not justified. 

u Read this calmly and impartially before the Lord in prayer. 
So shall the evil cease and the good remain. And you will then 
be more than ever united to 

" Your affectionate brother, J. Wesley. 

" Canterbury, Nov. 2, 1762." 

I cannot close this discussion without adding to these wise 
and admonitory words of Mr. "Wesley — words which were 
necessary in his time, and which show how sorely he was 
troubled with disturbers in his day by the unskillful handling 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 177 

of the great doctrine he taught, a further admonition demanded 
in our time from the same cause : I do so with unfeigned 
humility and, 1 am sure, in the spirit of sincere love — in the 
spirit of our common Master. There can be but one aim with 
us as Christians. That aim must be that the whole Church 
shall be brought to the highest possible completeness in Christ, 
that all the members of the mystical body should become vig- 
orous and healthy, that the entire Church should be penetrated 
and filled with the divine life to utmost fullness. I am bold 
to say this is the longing desire and aim of every regener- 
ate soul. Nothing is more certain than that things which 
tend to strife, and contention, and schism must hinder that aim. 
Can we doubt, with all the facts before us, that great evil has 
arisen from the spirit of separation which has been engendered 
and is assiduously cultivated among us ? Is it to edification that 
a guild should be established on the profession of special attain- 
ments in grace ? Does it improve the quality and usefulness of 
the class so distinguishing itself ? Does experience prove that 
it is helpful to the body % Is it authorized by the teachings and 
spirit of the Master himself ? It has appeared time and again : 
does the history of the past warrant the belief that it is of 
God ? Is there not a better way ? Reflect. 

Brothers, God has taken us into a great fellowship, 
even the fellowship of himself ; he has made us partakers of 
the divine nature ; has given to us the spirit of his Son, the in- 
dwelling of the Holy Ghost ; has raised us to sonship and heir- 
ship ; has set us to be the lights of the world ; to be co-workers 
with him in the salvation of our fellow-men ; the custodians and 
dispensers of his eternal truth, and the witnesses of his grace to 
present and complete salvation from sin. This is our high-call- 
ing of God in Christ Jesus. "We expect in a very brief period 



178 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

to be done with this earthly life, and are confidently hoping to 
be welcomed into heaven. In view of these things what man- 
ner of persons ought we to be ? Surely we are called unto holi- 
ness. Let us not quibble and quarrel about names. The great 
thing is to live as children of the light. " We then, as workers 
together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the 
grace of God in vain. . . . Giving no offense in any thing, that 
the ministry be not blamed ; but in all things approving our- 
selves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, 
in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in 
tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings ; by pureness, by 
knowledge, by long suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, 
by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, 
by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the 
left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report : 
as deceivers and yet true ; as unknown, and yet well known ; as 
dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened and not killed ; as sor- 
rowful yet always rejoicing ; as poor, yet making many rich ; as 
having nothing and yet possessing all things. O, ye [Christians] ! 
our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not 
straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels." 
" Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things 
are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are 
pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of 
good report ; if there by any virtue, and if there be any praise, 
think on these things. Those things which ye have both 
learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do : and the 
God of peace shall be with you." " The very God of peace 
sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul 
and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord 
Jesus Christ." 2 Cor. vi, 1-12 ; Phil, iv, 8, 9 ; 1 Thaw, v, 23. 
Let us heed these words of the great apostle, and, remembering 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 



179 



our great exampler, the Lord Jesus himself , let us as nearly as 
possible copy his example, and imitate his spirit, " who was holy, 
and harmless, and undefiled," and also "meek and lowly." God 
has entrusted us with a great trust : the blessed doctrine of 
Christian holiness. The trust puts us under peculiar responsi- 
bilities. Our fellow Christians of other communions have given 
no such hostages as we have. They are more modest in their 
professions. It is for us to prove that we are not rash, and by 
the beauty of our lives to furnish incentives to the higher expe- 
rience which we profess. It is for all who profess the name of 
the Lord Jesus to depart from all iniquity, and to show them- 
selves pure and spotless. Finally, brothers, have faith in God, 
pray earnestly and constantly for the heavenly help of the Holy 
Ghost, watch against the approaches of sin, abide near the cross. 
Keep a conscience void of offense toward God and man, be dili- 
gent, and so much the more as you see the day approaching. 
If these things are observed all men will know that you have 
been with Jesus. You will need no other testimony except as 
a grateful heart may move you to speak with meekness of the 
wondrous grace which saves you. 



180 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 



NOTE A. 



Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D.D., 
Pastor of the South Congregational Church [Unitarian], Boston. 

In answer to your note of October 5, let me say : 1. " Every person born in a 
Christian land is born a Christian, in a very familiar and legitimate sense of that word, 
precisely as every one born in America is born an American. The child is cared for 
by Christian skill, is fed on food which is Christ-given, is wrapped in a Christian 
blanket, and cannot escape from the beginning the influences of Christian life. 

2. "I do not, however, suppose that it is in this sense of the word Christian that 
you put your question. I suppose that the answer which your question requires 
is that which the Saviour gave. He said, when he had occasion to answer it, 
' Whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, 
and sister, and mother.' " 

This answer is as good now as it was then. 

39 Highland Street, Roxbury, Mass. 



Charles W. Eliot, LL.D., 
President of Harvard University. 
In answer to your question of October 5, I»beg to say that to my thinking he is 
a Christian who accepts Jesus Christ as the best moral and spiritual guide the 
world has seen, and tries in his Spirit to love and serve G-od and man. 
Cambridge, Mass. 

Rev. Cyrus A. Bartol, D.D., 

Pastor of the West Church [Unitarian], Boston. 

To be a Christian is to live for others. 
Manchester, Mass. 

Mrs. G. R. Alden (" Pansy "), 

Author, Magazinist. 

I very much regret that illness and an overwhelming pressure of work makes 
it impossible for me at this time to give a careful answer to the important ques- 
tion you ask, beyond the plain statement that, in my opinion, to be a Christian i9 
to love the Lord Jesus Christ so much that I shall desire to have him reign su- 
preme in my heart. I infer that you want this thought put into simpler, or 
rather into more detailed, language, and for that, as I said, I cannot secure the time. 

Winter Park, Fla. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 181 

Rev. A. P. Peabody, D.D., LL.D., 

Professor of Christian Morals, Harvard University. 
The Christian is he whose prime aim and evermore successful endeavor is 
Christ-likeness. 

I know of no other definition which does not exclude some whom it ought to 
include, or include some who have no right to be called Christians. 

II Quincy Street, Cambridge, Mass. 

Hon. Robert C. Pitman, LL.D., 
Judge of the Superior Court. 
" What is it to be a Christian ? " 

The simplest answer is the best. It is to be a discipla of Christ. Or, as Dr. 
Thomas Arnold puts it in one of his letters : " The purpose of his heart and mind 
is to obey and be guided by Christ, and therefore he is a Christian." This suf- 
fices for entrance upon the Christian life, and is the all-sufficient test of fellow- 
ship. The ultimate aim must be likeness to Christ. 
Newton, Mass. 

Mrs. Sarah K. Bolton, 
Author, Writer. 
Matt, vii, 12: "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do 
to you, do ye even so to them ; " for Christ's sake. Thus one leads an upright life 
from the best motive — unselfish love for another. 
Cleveland, 0. 

Rev. David H. Moore, D.D., 

Editor of the Western Christian Advocate. 
Building one's life upon the model — Christ Jesus. 
Cincinnati, 0. 

Rev. Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D., 

Pastor of Fourth Avenue Church [Presbyterian], New York. 

" What is it to be a Christian f " 

To be saved from sin and eternal death, faith in God as Saviour is the one essen- 
tial. "None of them that trust in him shall be desolate (Hebrew "bear guilt,") — 
Psa. xxxiv, 22. 

To be a Christian is to have this faith or trust in God, as made known in his 
Son Jesus Christ, the express image of his person. 

116 East Nineteenth Street, New York. 

Samuel Huntington, Esq., 

To will to do the will of God in the letter and spirit of 1 Cor. xiii and Gal. vi, 2. 
Burlington, Vt. 



182 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

Bev. O. P. Gifford, D.D., 
Pastor of the Warren Avenue Church [Baptist], Boston. 

" What is it to be a Christian ? " 

In the parable of the sower Jesus pictures the Son of man sowing seed. The 
soil had not in itself the secret of a harvest, therefore culture of the soil could not 
bring a harvest. Bad soil was stony, or trodden hard, or thorn mortgaged, and 
gave no harvest even when the seed was offered; good soil depended upon seed 
brought to it and received by it for a harvest. A man becomes a Christian when 
he accepts the truth which Christ taught, co-operates with the truth received, 
yields his whole life to " the truth as it is in Jesus," and reproduces that life up 
to the measure of his ability, "some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred- 
fold." Capacity to reproduce varies, but "eternal life" depends upon acceptance 
of Christ, submission to Christ, co-operation with Christ, and reproduction of Christ 

Boston, Mass. 

Charles C. Bragdon, 
Principal of Laseli Seminary. 
Qu^st'on: " What is it to be a Christian? " 
Answer, brief and adequate: Mark i, 18. 

To be a Christian seems to me to mean not necessarily to be a mature Christian. 
nor a faultless human being, but & follower. Better than all human comment is 
found in Matt, xx, 84, 27 and 28, and Matt, xxii, 37 and 39. 
AUBURNDALE, MASS. 

Mrs. Margaret Bottome, 
President of the Order of King's Daughters. 

" What is it to be a Christian ? " 

I answer : To believe what Jesus Christ says, and to do what Jesus Christ tells 
us to do. I remember hearing Mr. Moody tell of one who wanted to be a Chris- 
tian, and he did all he could to show her the way; but no light, no joy, came to 
her. At last, in utter despair, he said, "Will you follow me in our Lord's Prayer, 
sentence by sentence ? " So he commenced " Our Father " — and she repeated it 
after him until he reached the sentence, " forgive us our trespasses as we forgive 
those who trespass against us." She quietly said, " I never say that." "Why 
not ? " said Moody. " Because there is a woman who injured me, and I never 
will forgive her." "Thou," said he, "you will never become a Christian." "Well, 
here it ends," she said. And it did end in her going to the asylum in two years 
after. (May be it was called a case of religious insanity, but it was the want of 
it.) No, the time has come when we would better, with the life of our Lord in 
our hands, find out whether we are Christians or not. We will not need any 
formulated creed. Self-denial will take us a shorter wav to becoming a Christian 
than any Shorter or Longer Catechism that I know anything about — the simple 
" follow Me," which means to us, do as I tell you. And the first thing he will 
tell us to do is to believe. He tells the truth when he says that God loves us and 
is our Father. The best and hardest thing is to really believe God is our Father. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 188 

And when we really say "Father!" we are Christians — not perfect Christians, 
but Christians. Our soldiers were as much in the army after they had taken the 
oath as they were when captains or generals. 

Try this simple way! The oath is, u I will obey Jesus Christ; " and in less than 
five minutes you will be a Christian. Try it ! 

29 "Washington Place, New York. 



Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D., 

Pastor of Plymouth Church and Editor of the Christian Union. 

To be a Christian is, according to the New Testament phraseology, to be a 
follower of Christ — not to think something about him, but to appreciate him, love 
him, try to be like him, and trust in the help which comes through him for accom- 
plishing the work which he gives his followers to do. 

Brooklyn. N. Y. 

Professor David Swing, D.D., 
Pastor of the Independent Church, Chicago. 

All those terms which end in " nits " in Latin and "nos" in Greek mean " be- 
longing to." An Americans is a man who belongs to America. This is the 
truest and sharpest meaning of Christianas or Christian — a man, woman or child 
that belongs to Christ. The person who is like Christ in thought and deed, and 
who ardently wishes to become more and more like him, is the best Christian 
conceivable. As a Whig, or a Democrat, or a Republican may still be an Ameri- 
can, so a Methodist, or a Baptist, or a Calvinist, may be a Christian. It is not 
necessary that a Christian should believe in any doctrines except those taught by 
Christ. He need not have Moses for a master. If necessary, he can live upon 
the Gospel of John or Matthew. Methodism or Calvinism does not harm him, but 
it is Christism that makes him and saves him. 

403 Superior Street, Chicago, III. 

Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D., 
Pastor of the Lafayette Avenue Church [Presbyterian], Brooklyn. 
" What is it to be a Christian ? " 

Jesus Christ answered this question when he said that whoever would be his 
disciple must deny himself and follow him. The man, therefore, who forsakes 
his sins, and by the help of the Holy Spirit endeavors to keep the commandments 
of his atoning Saviour and Lord, is a Christian. Faith joins the sinner's soul to 
the sinner's Saviour. 

Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, 

Lecturer, Author. 
In late years, I have come to place great stress on life and character, as fur- 
nishing the best evidence of one being a Christian. "By their fruits ye shall 
know them." 



184 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

And yet, it seems to me that a belief in the historic Christ, based on the New 
Testament histories, and illustrated and fortified by the researches of the reliable 
biblical scholars of the day, is essential, if one would be a well-grounded and 
intelligent Christian, theoretically. 

Secondly: To this intellectual conviction must be added a persistent and 
courageous endeavor to act up to one's highest ideal, and to live a life of love to 
God and man, in accordance with the teachings of Christ. The life must be 
dominated by a high purpose, 

" To think, to feel, to do 
Only the holy Right ; 
To yield no step in the awful race, 
No blow in the fearful fight." 

One cannot be a Christian who does not aim to live among his fellows in love 
and helpfulness, bearing their burdens and illuminating their darkness. As the 
law of Christ's life was service to the world, so should it be that of those who 
call themselves by his name. 

" By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to 
another. 1 ' 

Melrose, Mass. 

Kev. Charles Gordon Ames, 
Pastor of the Church of the Disciples [Unitarian], Boston. 

I respond to your request for an answer to the question, " What is it to be a 
Christian?" not without 'some reluctance, and not wholly to my own content; 
for behind every question lurk a hundred others, and who can voice the un- 
speakable ? Words, too, are ambiguous and leaky ; they never hold half one's 
meaning. All the same, I suppose we ought to keep on talking as the Spirit 
gives utterance to every man. 

" What is it to be a Christian ? " 

We may be helped to an answer by the ideal " good man " described by Jesus 
— a man who " out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things," 
and who is thus known by his fruits to be a partaker of the divine nature. But 
a truly penitent sinner may also be called a Christian, as soon as his will goes 
over to the side of goodness. If I try to distinguish between the ordinary ''good 
man " and the Christian, the latter presents himself as a conscious child of G-od, of 
the Christ pattern ; that is, as one whose virtue is fashioned and colored by the 
Spirit of loving trust and obedience which we call sonship, of which brotherhood, 
justice, and willing service are the sure outcome. Technically, or according to 
the common use of language, the Christian is one who has reached this experience 
of sonship by the Christ-method, through the trusting surrender of self-will ; or 
by heeding the counsels of perfection given and illustrated by Jesus, whose su- 
preme sacrifice was simply the making of the Father's will his own. Faith, hope, 
love, pardon, the new life, regeneration — all inhere-in this enthronement of the 
divine authority within the will. 

But the name Christian is of secondary importance, and of ten definitions all 
may be true. One finds in the New Testament no exhortations to be " Christian ;" 






PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 185 

the whole urgency of the Gospel is to produce " sons of God " of such quality that 
the Father's life may be in them ; that his Spirit may bear them witness, lead and 
sanctify them ; and that the well-beloved may not be ashamed to call them 
brethren and joint-heirs with himself to the inheritance of love, wisdom, and 
power. We have many ways of talking about it ; and spiritual experience has 
endless varieties ; but all genuine goodness is of one stuff; and it never includes 
God's grace and man's freedom. 
Boston, Mass. 

Kev. Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D., 

Pastor of the Madison Square Church [Presbyterian], New York. 

The following paragraph states as succinctly as I am able to do my conception 
of the essential fact in personal Christianity. 

To be a Christian is humanly to incarnate the very life of God ; and thus to be, 
in the strictest sense of the expression, a little Christ in our own little world. 

133 East Thirty-Fifth Street, New York. 

Miss Frances E. Willard, 
President of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. 

"What is it to be a Christian? " 

I have been trying to find out the answer to this most momentous question of 
all time for well-nigh fifty years ! For, as one has said, the statements concerning 
Christ are of such a character that, if they are true, it matters very little what 
else is false; and if they are false, it matters very little what is true. The foun- 
dation-line of my character-pyramid is that they are as true, though not so de- 
monstrable, as the proportions of geometry. 

This granted, I should say that to be a Christian is to be adjusted to God's laws 
written in our minds, our members, and our spirits as accurately as the eye is 
adjusted to light, the ear to sound, the heart to love, the soul to faith. It is 
to have one's lifeship consciously guided by the Holy Spirit, God whispering his 
oracles through conscience, and to believe with one's inmost nature, intellect, 
sensibilities, and will that " God was manifest in the flesh, reconciling the world 
unto himself through Christ Jesus," our elder Brother, our Exemplar and 
Kedeemer. 

En route in New York. 

Hon. Franklin Fairbanks, 
President of Fairbanks Scale Company. 
I could answer your inquiry at length, but to be very brief answer as follows : 
"What is it to be a Christian ? " 

To be a Christian is to believe on, and to follow, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son 
of God, one of the Trinity. Acts viii, 37 ; John xi, 27. 

To be a Christian one must have a change of heart, the "new birth." John 
iii, 3, 5. 
St. Johnsbury, Vt. 



186 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

Bev. A. J. Gordon, D.D., 

Pastor of the Clarendon Street Church, Baptist, Boston. 

To be a Christian is one thing ; to begin to be a Christian is quite another thing. 
The first attainment involves a life-time of toil and conflict and discipline ; the 
second involves a surrender of the will to Christ. To believe on the Lord Jesus, 
which means to receive Christ as our personal Lord and Saviour, is the step by 
which we enter on the Christian life. In order that our faith may be proved to 
be sincere, it must be openly confessed. " If thou shalt confess with thy mouth 
the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God has raised him from the dead, 
thou shalt be saved." Rom. x. 9. This belief expressing itself in confession is 
that by which one begins to be a Christian ; to be a Christian involves a whole suc- 
ceeding life-time of obedience, cross-bearing, and holy living. 

Boston, Mass. 

Borden P. Bowne, LL.D., 

Professor of Philosophy, Boston University. 
To be a Christian is to live in loving submission and active obedience to the will 
of God, trusting in his mercy in Jesus Christ. 
Boston, Mass. 

Mrs. Lucy Bider Meyer, M.D., 

Principal of the Chicago Training School, and Superintendent of the Chicago Deaconess 

Home. 
To be a Christian is 

1. Not to be a church member, though all Christians ought to be church 
members. 

2. Not to be religious, though all Christians will be religious. 

3. Not to "give one's body to be burned," though all Christians, by the grace 
of God, would, if need be, give their bodies to be burned. 

To be a Christian is 

1. To be born of God. " Except a man be born again, he cannot see the king- 
dom of God." 

2. To be saved from sin. " Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save 
his people from their sins." 

3. To be like Christ. "It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master." 

4. To possess Christ. " He that hath the Son hath Christ." 
Chicago, III. 

Bev. Arthur T. Pierson, D.D., 

Editor of the Missionary Review of the World. 

To be a Christian is to accept Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord; as Saviour, to 
save from sin's penalty and power ; as Lord, to rule over the heart and life. A 
Christian is, therefore, one who heartily believes on Jesus, and is therefore a fol- 
lower of him. 

Philadelphia, Pa. 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 187 

Bev. Benjamin St. James Fry, D.D., 

Editor of the Central Christian Advocate. 
To be a Christian is to obtain by faith in Christ the renewing and rectification 
of one's spiritual life, which life attains perfection in loving God with all the soul 
and mind and might and strength, and one's neighbor as one's self. 
St. Louis, Mo. 

Marion Harland, 
Author, and Editor of the Home-Maker. 

To be Christians is, first of all, believe, love, and trust in our crucified, risen, 
and ascended Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, for our temporal salvation from 
sin, and eternal safety from the consequences of sin. As the fruit of this act of 
" saving faith," it follows that we should grow, daily, into likeness to him and 
nearness to him, looking to him for counsel, comfort, and strength. If we love 
him, we will keep his commandments. His Spirit informs the desires and shapes 
the actions of his true children. Thus springs into exercise the highest form of 
humanity. As he loved us, we must love also one another. 

New York City. 

Joseph. Cook, 
Lecturer, Author, Editor of Our Day. 

A Christian is one who has obtained deliverance from both the love and the guilt 
of sin through the new birth and the atonement; one who has the faith that makes 
faithful ; one who loves what God loves and hates what God hates : one who has 
gladly, affectionately, and irreversibly accepted God in Christ as both Saviour 
and Lord ; one who sees God as Creator and Saviour so vividly and intelligently 
as to be willing to accept him as Ruler also; one who so beholds the cross of 
Christ that it is no cross to bear the cross. 

Boston, Mass. 

Bev. John P. Newman, D.D., LL.D., 
Bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

You ask, " What is it to be a Christian?" There is a world of difference be- 
tween a Christian and a Christ-like man. We count Christians by hundreds of 
millions, but the Christ-like people are reckoned only by millions. He who 
accepts Christ as " God manifested in the flesh ; " his teachings as divine 
revelations to mankind; his ordinances of religion as the holiest obligations; 
his conditions of repentance, faith, conversion, as essential to eternal life ; 
his claims on the love of the soul, the purity of the life, and on charity for 
man and devotion for God, is a Christian by profession of faith, as distinguished 
from all unbelievers whether in heathendom or Christendom. This is the honorable 
difference between the believer in the Lord and the Jew, the infidel and the pagan. 
Such are historical and doctrinal Christians, and the world is full of them. Let 
us believe that many such are beautiful in morality and lovable in philanthrophy. 
This is an immense power seen in governments, iu systems of education, and in 
social reforms. All hail ! to a power so potent and sublime 1 All this is the fruit- 
age of a true professional conviction. 



188 PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 

But there remains something deeper, broader, grander to be possessed. The 
measure of this better estate ranges from a desire to " flee from the wrath to come,'* 
to "all the mind that was in Christ," dominating the whole man, and an individ- 
ual incarnation of Jesus, so that "Christ liveth in me." To cherish this desire by 
all possible means of grace, until all that is evil in us is eliminated, all that is 
good in us is brought to maturity, and all that is lacking in us is supplied, is the 
duty and the privilege of each. Within these extremes are all true Christians. 
The "bruised reed " and the " smoking flax " are not to be despised. The " leaven 
in the meal " and the " mustard seed " in the earth are symbols of heavenly grace 
in the human heart. This is the babyhood of the Christian, lovable and beauti- 
ful as infancy. Beyond is the manhood, wherein the Christ- spirit holds every ap- 
petite and passion within the limits of law — purifies each motive, exalts each 
purpose, enonbles each aspiration, intones the conscience to the severest morality, 
enshrines the love of God and man in the "heart of hearts," and lifts up the hu- 
man will and the divine will in their duality into a perfect oneness in our Lord. 

Many have attained thereunto. They are walking in white ; their conversation 
is in heaven. To them, prayer is the habit of the soul. Faith is the normal condi- 
tion of the Spirit. Love is enthroned. ! that this experience may be my re- 
alized answer to your question, " What is it to be a Christian ? " 

Nashville, Tenn. 

Eev. D. A. Whedon, D.D., 

Of the New England Southern Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church. 

A Christian is one who believes and practices the truths and doctrines of 
Christianity, consisting of the facts of Christ's life and his teachings as found in 
the four gospels, and the doctrines based upon them by his apostles. One may, 
therefore, be a good Jew, a good Buddhist, a good Confucian, a good Moham- 
medan, or a good Agnostic, and be no Christian ; for though he may believe some 
truths and practice some virtues which are taught by Christ, he rejects the Gos- 
pel and refuses supreme allegiance to him. 

Christ's first teaching was to call to repentance ; his second, the necessity of a 
new birth; his third, faith in himself as essential to salvation. The believing 
penitent God accepts, forgives, .and brings into right relations to himself. By an 
inward supernatural change he makes the love of God the supreme affection of 
his soul and gives him power to refrain from sinning and to obey God. He also 
gives him a filial relation to himself, graciously adopting him as a child. The 
sinner thus becomes a Christian, and to continue a Christian he must continue what 
God has made him — forgiven, renewed, and his child. 

A Christian, then, is one who takes Christ as his Saviour to save him and his 
Lord to rule him ; who loves God more than all else, and his neighbor as himself; 
who, as to himself, subdues the evil within him ; as to God, obeys his laws as 
given in the Scriptures ; and as to his fellows, walks honestly, justly, unselfishly, 
kindly, helpfully, as Jesus would do in his place. 

East Greenwich, R. I. 



